Glorious and Free
by foobar137
Summary: Dark AU; Sequel to Nothing Civil About War. Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella have escaped to Canada, but the newly-reunified America is looking for new lands to conquer and enslave. Maybe an old friend and a new one can help them replicate Isabella's biomechanical implants to help defend their new home? However, General Archer isn't giving up on them that easily...
1. O Canada

**Trigger warnings: mention of suicide, death, loss of autonomy, slavery, potential rape.**

 **Many thanks to Sabrina06 for beta. Assume any errors on the Canadian (or American) military are entirely mine.**

* * *

Warrant Officer Colin Park followed his superior officer, Captain René Desjardins, through the maze of desks that made up headquarters of the Canadian Special Operations Regiment. The two of them had been summoned to the battalion commander's office for some reason that, presumably, would be explained to them when they arrived.

They arrived at Lieutenant Colonel Wakeford's door, where his adjutant sat waiting. He looked up at them and said, "Go on in, he's waiting."

They entered the office, and Colin closed the door behind them. The colonel sat behind a heavy wood desk, clean except for three folders stacked neatly in front of him. A large television, turned off, dominated one wall, while another held a large picture of Banff in the autumn.

"Desjardins and Park, reporting as ordered, Sir," the captain said.

"Sit, both of you," the colonel said, and they sat in the two chairs that awaited them. "I've got a mission for your platoon," he began. "This is codeword clearance, Project Obelisk."

Colin nodded in understanding. Beyond Top Secret, clearance level names themselves were classified on a need-to-know basis.

Captain Desjardins said, "Yes, Sir," in his faint accent. After so many years in service, his English was excellent, only betrayed by an occasional odd bit of phrasing from his native French. Colin had served with him for a year now, and they'd gotten to know each other well.

The colonel handed each of them a folder, keeping one for himself. "What I need you to do is retrieve three Americans from a hospital in Fort Frances, and get them safely to CFB Suffield. From there, you'll hold there to work with them and help protect them."

Colin frowned. _That's bizarre. Why would you send CSOR troops for something like this? We're special forces, not a taxi service._ He flipped the folder open; inside were pictures of three people in their twenties. The first picture was a tanned young woman with shoulder-length black hair and piercing blue eyes. The second was a pale young man with a long, pointy nose and a bright shock of red hair. The third was an even-paler young man with a broad, square nose and green hair.

"Pourquoi?" Captain Desjardins asked, seemingly so confused he'd dropped back into French. He shook his head. "Who are these people?"

"The men are Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, inventors of the tumbler bomb," the colonel said.

Colin sat up straight at that mention. The tumbler bomb had won the Second American Civil War for the Central faction, so clearly its inventors would be an asset to whoever they worked for.

The colonel continued, "The woman is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. She is the reason that the three of them have all requested asylum in Canada, and quite possibly the most important of the three."

"More important than the tumbler bomb?" the captain asked incredulously.

Colonel Wakeford smiled. "How would you rate the American Navy SEALs, relative to CSOR?"

Captain Desjardins bobbed his head from side to side noncommittally, then shrugged. "They are both top-level special operations forces. Our training is better, but the SEALs will all have much more combat experience, after almost twenty years at war. At that level, individual variation matters more than anything else. One would not want to place a wager between them. Why?"

"Okay. Have either of you heard of a Southwestern US project or force called 'Dewdrop'?"

Colin shook his head. "No," the captain said.

The colonel turned on the TV, then tapped a few keys on his computer. An image came up, showing a forest scene with a 'pause' symbol on it. "This video was captured by an intelligence source in the Central faction of the Americans, approximately two years ago. We had a lead on a top researcher who had been moved to a secure area for protection, and wanted to see what this force was that the Southwest had been using against Dixie and Central. Even so, we got lucky with this." He unpaused the video, and the trees swayed lightly in the breeze as he continued talking. "This was after the researcher had been killed. The perpetrator was escaping, but had apparently lost her sidearm on the way out. There was a platoon of Navy SEALs who had been deployed to aid in protecting the researcher. They were sent out to catch the individual responsible."

A young woman trotted into the video. She was petite and dark-skinned, wearing digital-camo fatigues. She paused, listening, and leapt up into a tree, out of the frame.

"How the..." Colin blurted out. "Sorry, sir, but how did she jump like that?"

"Just watch," the colonel said.

Four soldiers came into the frame, following the young woman. They all wore full battle dress, and stalked through the countryside almost-silently. Their M-16 rifles were up and ready for action. The one in front held up a hand, and they all paused, their eyes searching the bush for any enemy.

"Four SEALs. Watch," the colonel repeated, and then a blur leapt into the frame from above. It landed between the two rear soldiers, lifting one and throwing her at the other. They both went down, but the blur - the young woman in fatigues from before - had already grabbed a dropped rifle before it hit the ground. Two three-round bursts rattled off, and the front two soldiers, still turning, were both hit. At that range, their body armor was no match for the bullets, and they spun to the forest floor clutching their wounds. The soldier who had been thrown struggled to get off her companion. Another burst, and she stopped struggling.

The soldier on the bottom of the pile shoved her corpse off, but had nothing to return fire with; his rifle was the one the attacker had grabbed. He pulled a knife from his belt and threw it as the fourth burst, fired one-handed, dropped him as well. Meanwhile, the young woman casually caught the knife in mid-air with her free hand. She smiled and spun it in her fingers before tucking it into her belt, then dropped the rifle she had used and picked up another. She checked it, nodded, then ran off, considerably faster than she had come into the frame initially.

"Mon dieu," Captain Desjardins whispered. Colin could only agree.

The colonel nodded and closed the video. "That, gentlemen, was Project Dewdrop. Biomechanical enhancement to superhuman levels. There were fourteen people who received the implants. Twelve survived the training. That particular individual was code named India One. She died when a tumbler bomb hit the bunker she was in."

He flipped open his folder, showing the picture of the young black-haired woman again. "There is only one Dewdrop-enhanced soldier still alive: Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, code name Echo Three. The deadliest combatant on the planet. And now you see why America wants her back so badly that they might commit an act of war to get her."

"Indeed," the captain said. "So what is our mission, Sir?"

"Four things. First, get them to Suffield safely. Second, work with the MPs there to keep them safe. Third, train with Ms. Garcia-Shapiro to find the best tactics for unenhanced individuals against someone with these abilities. And, fourth, find volunteers to be the first Canadian soldiers with these implants."

"Sir?" Colin asked.

"That," the colonel nodded to the video, "is what the Americans got by taking untrained children, giving them implants, and then training them. We'd like to see what happens when you take elite soldiers and start from there."

* * *

"Hey, where's Isabella?" Adyson asked as Holly followed Katie in. The old Fireside Girls troop got together on Thursday nights for pizza, wine, and bad movies; after Phineas had bought Isabella, she'd joined in with them as well.

Holly looked around; she was the last one there today, after the clusterfuck in the mayor's office caused by everything that had happened at Fletcher-Flynn. Mayor Abercrombie had been leaning on his assistant - Holly - more heavily than usual as the city's power structures tried to cope with the sudden vacuum.

Ginger sat at the far end of the couch, holding nine-month-old little Dave, who had gone to sleep. Adyson sat next to her. Katie, Dave's mother, had swung into the kitchen to get something. "Let me wait until Katie gets back?" Holly said.

"I heard my name?" Katie said as she came back in, carrying four wine glasses. "Let me put Dave down and we can get started. He wore himself out at the park today." She set the glasses on the table and picked up the sleeping baby, nuzzling him as she carried him out of the room.

Ginger, usually quiet after her experiences as a slave POW during the war, looked up at Holly with concern. "At least tell me she's okay?"

"She's okay," Holly said. "She's fine." The last thing Holly wanted to do was trigger Ginger's PTSD. Ginger had been enslaved herself for a while, and mistreated by a pornographic film company. Sometimes it felt like the only thing that kept her stable at all was Buford, a friend of theirs who had taken her in after she'd been liberated.

Ginger nodded, reassured.

"Is it related to the mess with Fletcher-Flynn? Did something happen to Phineas and Ferb?" Adyson asked.

"Oh, God, yes," Holly said, taking a seat.

Katie came back in, carrying a bottle of wine. She poured a glass for Holly and handed it to her. "You look like you need this."

Holly nodded, sighing deeply. "Yes." She took a sip, sitting back in her chair as Katie poured wine for everyone else.

"So what's up?" Adyson asked.

Holly took a deep breath. "First things first - Isabella is safe in Canada with Phineas and Ferb."

Adyson blinked, and a wide smile broke over Ginger's face. "She's free?" Ginger asked eagerly.

"Yes."

Ginger sat back, hugging her knees to herself. Katie and Adyson looked at each other, puzzled.

Holly continued, "Isabella wasn't ops, like she claimed. She was in some sort of human-enhancement research project. I don't know all the details, the mayor wouldn't let me stay for those meetings. But the military was apparently looking for her all along."

"Did the boys know?" Katie asked, turning up her hearing aids. Katie's hearing had been damaged in the war, and she got by now with electronic assistance and lip reading.

"Apparently not - it looks like they were involved with trying to find her." Holly took another sip of her wine. It had been a long couple of days.

Adyson laughed. "Of course. Phineas never thought to look in his own bed."

"Pretty much. I don't quite understand it, but apparently they thought the person they were looking for was male. Anyway, it all came to a head Monday night, the military found out, and Phineas and Isabella went on the run. They tied me up and stole my car to get away."

"That was a dick move," Katie said, and Holly nodded.

 _Of course, I gave them the keys and told them to tie me up to make it look like they'd stolen it_ , she thought. "The military brought it back this morning. Even put a full tank of gas in it. Anyway, Ferb acted as if he were helping the military, but in the end he escaped too. And now the mayor's dealing with how much he knew when, and there's this power vacuum in Danville with Fletcher-Flynn in trouble. There's talk of nationalizing the company now."

Ginger uncoiled and leaned forward, picking up her glass from the table. "Doesn't matter. _Isabella's free._ That's what's important." She lifted her glass. "To freedom."

Holly smiled, and tapped her glass to Ginger's as the other women followed suit. "To freedom."

* * *

Phineas leaned in through the door of Isabella's hospital room. "Almost ready?"

"All set," she said, zipping up her backpack and slinging it over her uninjured shoulder. She'd spent two days and nights in the hospital in Fort Frances, recovering from the gunshot wound she'd taken to her left shoulder. Fortunately, her implants included a healing boost, so while she wasn't quite back to full strength, she could use the shoulder if she needed to.

She and Phineas had run for the Canadian border after he and Ferb had found out her true identity - she was Echo Three, the last remaining super-soldier created by Project Dewdrop. They'd been trying to track her down for months in an attempt to recreate the Dewdrop implants, and to get revenge for her killing their father. What they hadn't realized was that Phineas had purchased her as a POW slave just as the war ended, and the two of them had fallen in love.

Ferb, after revealing the truth to the US military, had switched sides once he'd realized that Isabella had had no choice. He'd knocked out the last few soldiers that could have stopped them, but not before one had hit Isabella with a lucky shot. She'd staggered the last few yards across the border, carrying Phineas after his leg had given out.

Now, she was unsure what was going to happen. The Canadians had requested that, as the price of protection from American retribution, the three of them help replicate the Dewdrop implants. They'd sweetened the pot with a promise to work on non-military uses - her auditory implants could be used to help people with hearing loss, while her lung implants could help those with cystic fibrosis, for example. But, ultimately, everyone knew that the American economy had restructured itself around slaves during the 18-year civil war, and when the last POWs were sold off, they'd start looking around for another victim. Canada and Mexico were allying with the European Union, but the size and experience of the American forces would make defense tough regardless. Dewdrop-style enhancements could make the difference between freedom and slavery.

The first step, clearly, would be getting her away from the American border. She'd been here entirely too long as it was, recuperating from her wound. Phineas had stayed with her, while Ferb went to Ottawa to speak to the Canadian government.

"Lead the way," she said, turning toward Phineas with a smile. "Do you know where we're going yet?"

"Nothing," he said. "Apparently nobody here has need-to-know at all. Captain Davison said somebody would be coming to pick us up." He held open the door and ushered her through, into the hallway. Two soldiers stood on guard while the doctors and nurses eyed them nervously. Phineas turned to one of them. "Corporal Lewis, I think we're ready to go."

"If you'll follow me," the soldier said. "Captain Davison is waiting in the lobby." He started toward the elevator at a brisk pace, and Isabella had to walk quickly to keep up. Phineas reached over and clasped her hand, squeezing briefly, and she glanced at him with a smile. Behind them, the other soldier followed as a rear guard.

She hadn't expected to find a relationship with someone like Phineas - her only real long-term relationship before him had been with Sophie, a girl from the same orphanage who had also been drafted into Dewdrop. He was, she felt, far too good for her, but she wasn't about to complain.

They were halfway down the hall when the elevator door opened with a _*ding*_. Four soldiers stepped out, walking toward them. Isabella noticed that their hands dropped to their sidearms, and with a start, she realized that they carried DIMMERs instead of normal pistols. She brought her implants up to speed as one of them started to draw his weapon. "It's a snatch!" she said as she dropped the backpack and leapt toward them, trying to close the distance before the knockout-pistol could aim at her. The two in front reached for the shock batons at their belt while the last hesitated for a fraction of a second. To the side, the nurse at the duty station dropped behind the desk as she hit the alarm button. Red lights began flashing along the hallway.

Isabella dropped down and slid along the tile floor as the first DIMMER shot went over her head. The front two hadn't gotten their shock batons out yet, and she hit them in the shins at speed. They both fell, and she grabbed one by her fatigue shirt, throwing her into the one who had fired the shot. He squawked as the thrown soldier hit him, knocking them both backwards. She pushed the other aside before he could fall on her, telling her implants to mute the pain in her injured shoulder, then kicked out at the one who was still standing. He was just starting to draw his DIMMER when she kicked his knee with her implant-enhanced strength. He went down howling as Isabella leapt back to her feet, picking up a DIMMER that had gone flying on impact.

Behind her, the two soldiers escorting them had caught on and were approaching, their rifles pointed and ready. One of the soldiers on the floor tried to pull out his DIMMER; Isabella knocked him out with her own, then hit the other three.

"What..." Corporal Lewis said. "You just..."

"They're knocked out. It's an advanced taser that Ferb invented," Phineas said. "Sort of. He calls it a DIMMER. Dual Incapacitation Mode Manual Emission Railgun."

"Huh. It looks like the thing from that TV show, eh?" Lewis said.

"Goodnight gun from AEGIS Undercover. Ferb's a big fan." Isabella dropped the empty pistol she was holding. She picked up the other three, handing one to Phineas. He gripped it like a dead fish, a look of distaste on his face. Isabella rolled her eyes at him. "Seriously?"

"Sorry, I just don't like guns," Phineas said.

"Fine. Corporal, do you want one?"

"Never been big on knockout weapons," Corporal Lewis said. "The way I see it is, if somebody knows you can't kill them, they don't have a reason not to attack you. So using a taser is just begging to be shot at, eh?"

Isabella laughed. "I suppose. But it's what I've got right now. And I suspect the hospital would prefer we not kill anyone."

"Yes," the nurse hiding behind the desk said shakily.

Shaking her head, Isabella tucked one DIMMER into the back of her belt, then kept the other one ready. Meanwhile, Lewis was talking into his microphone. "Snatch team, four soldiers with some funky knockout gun. Ms. Garcia-Shapiro took them all down." He listened for a moment, then said, "Probably American, yes."

"Definitely American," Phineas said. "Nobody else has these." He held up the pistol awkwardly, carrying Isabella's backpack in the other hand while wearing his own.

"We'll meet you in the lobby," Lewis said.

"Let's move," Isabella said, leading them to the staircase.

* * *

Phineas followed Isabella down the stairs. Corporal Lewis led them down, with Private Gardner bringing up the rear. Isabella had insisted on the stairs, saying that she didn't want to get in a box when there were hostiles around.

"How's your shoulder?" he asked quietly.

"Fine," she said curtly, then he heard her exhale. "Hurts a bit. It's still not 100%, so the fight wasn't a great idea."

"Hopefully it won't be a problem again," he said.

They reached the ground floor, and Lewis and Gardner flanked the door, giving hand signals to each other. With a nod, Lewis hit the crash bar and threw the door open, his rifle sweeping the lobby as he went through, moving to the left. Gardner followed, her rifle covering the right side.

"Clear," Lewis said, and Isabella followed a bit more slowly, holding a DIMMER out and ready as another was tucked into her belt in the back. Phineas went out after her, ignoring the DIMMER in his own belt.

Half a dozen soldiers were guarding the lobby, placed behind furniture or counters, while Captain Davison sat at the otherwise-vacant reception desk. Outside, a light Humvee-like wheeled vehicle sat on a grassy patch in the center of the lobby roundabout. One soldier sat in the driver's seat, while another stood in the back, leaning on a machine gun mounted to the roof of the vehicle. Behind it, he saw the Rainy River across the street, and on the far side he could barely see International Falls through the mist.

"There you are," Davison said. "I've been told your ride is ten minutes out. We suspect there are more Americans coming, but no word on how many or when."

"Who's the ride?" Isabella asked, slinking over to the desk, keeping low. Phineas followed, feeling like there was a bulls-eye on his forehead. Lewis and Gardner moved to join the other soldiers guarding the lobby at a nod from the captain.

"They don't tell me these things, but I'd guess somebody pretty serious," the captain said.

The gunner looked up sharply, gripping his machine gun. A grenade arced into the Humvee before exploding, stunning them with a loud bang and a bright flash. Phineas blinked as the bright afterimage stained his vision, even shielded by the distance and the windows.

"Heads up!" the captain called, and the soldiers in the lobby dropped down behind planters in preparation for an attack.

A white van pulled up next to the Humvee, its side door opening even as it came to a stop. One soldier fired a DIMMER, taking out the two men in the Humvee, while two others hurled grenades. The grenades shattered the lobby windows on their way in. Two of the Canadian soldiers fired, hitting the side of the truck but not any of the soldiers inside.

Phineas covered his ears and closed his eyes, but that wasn't enough to protect him from the sensory assault of two flash-bangs going off in the room almost simultaneously.

* * *

Isabella ducked down, taking shelter behind the desk, as she saw the grenades coming in. She turned her hearing off entirely, which would help with the stun from the sound but not completely protect her. She cranked the rest of her implants to full-power.

The sound hammered her like a wall of pure force, and she could see fringes of white around her sheltering arm even with her eyes closed. She'd counted two grenades coming in, so after she felt the second grenade go off, she risked opening her eyes again. There was an afterimage, but fortunately, she'd kept it out of the center of her vision. Peeking her head up, she saw two American soldiers moving into the building, hitting the stunned Canadians with what looked like rifle versions of the DIMMER.

One of them gestured toward her, and she leapt backwards as her DIMMER pistol came up. Her first shot was true, and the soldier dropped her rifle as she fell to the ground, but the second soldier had time to duck before she could get the shot off, and it passed inches above his head. She bounced to the side, glancing at the entrance to see if there were more coming in.

Another flash grenade was flying toward her, too close for her to avoid. She dove to the side, closing her eyes to give what little protection she could. _At least the other American soldier will be affected as well_ , she thought just before the world turned white, even through her closed eyelids.

The sound hammered her again, and she landed behind a planter, her thoughts a muddle. Her head was reeling from the impacts of the sound, which were more physical than sonic. She shook her head and blinked, but her vision was still filled with white.

 _Need to risk it, and hope,_ she thought, and reactivated her hearing. Her ears were ringing a bit, but the nerves weren't as overloaded. She could hear the American soldier moaning, and the crunch of somebody else stepping through the broken glass at the entrance to the lobby.

She blinked again, and she could vaguely see some shapes. _Good enough._ She snapped up, firing the last three shots in her DIMMER at the moving blob by the entrance before ducking back down.

She heard the sound of a DIMMER hitting something solid, then a male voice said, "Shit! She's still up!"

Isabella turned her hearing off again, in case another flash-bang came in. If one went off while her hearing was still cranked up...

She blinked again. Vision was vaguely coming back, brightly stained by the afterimage of the flash. She had ended up behind a desk. There was a planter to one side that, she suspected, would give her a better angle on the room.

 _No bang yet. Maybe they're out of grenades?_

Carefully, she turned her hearing back on. There was a quiet crunch as a boot stepped on broken glass, almost level with her position. She leapt backwards, toward the planter, firing as she went. The DIMMER clicked, empty, and she cursed as she tossed it aside. She ducked back behind the planter, reaching for the spare she'd tucked into the back of her belt.

It wasn't there.

"She's out of ammo," the male voice said again. "I'll cover this side, you take that side."

She looked around. She'd retreated to a part of the lobby that hadn't had any soldiers in it, so she couldn't grab weapons from them.

* * *

Phineas crouched behind the reception desk at the back of the lobby. The captain had moved forward, and he wasn't sure what had happened to her.

His hearing was vaguely coming back, and he could almost see what was going on now.

"She's out of ammo. I'll cover this side, you take that side," a male voice said quietly.

 _Must be talking about Isabella_ , Phineas thought.

He saw the DIMMER he'd dropped lying on the floor next to him. _Time for me to help?_ He picked it up, gripping it tightly. He didn't like guns. But, it was this, or end up back in America. He took a deep breath, then peeked over the desk.

Two soldiers were moving to flank a planter off to the left of the lobby. The floor was littered with Canadian soldiers, apparently unconscious.

The American soldiers had body armor on their torsos that would probably protect them from a DIMMER, but it appeared their legs were unprotected. He aimed carefully at the rear end of the nearest one, and squeezed the trigger.

The gun recoiled in his hand as it fired, and he almost dropped it. The shot hissed as it flew out of the barrel, striking the soldier's leg.

The soldier straightened, starting to turn toward him, before suddenly slumping to the ground.

"Shit!" the other soldier said, turning toward him and leveling his rifle. Phineas pointed the gun at him and screamed, firing two shots wildly before dropping back behind the desk. Several DIMMER shots flew over his head.

* * *

Isabella crouched, ready to jump as soon as somebody came into range. It wasn't much of an option, but it was the best she had.

A DIMMER shot fired from the back of the room, sounding like it hit somebody, and one of the soldiers cursed as Phineas screamed. Several more shots were fired, but not at her. She peeked up, and saw one soldier remaining, firing his rifle toward the back of the room.

 _Thank you, Phineas._ She leapt up, closing the distance to the last soldier before he could turn back to her. She could almost see his eyes widen through his visor as she grabbed his rifle, twisting it away as she spun past him. A leg sweep put him on the floor, and a quick shot in the leg, unprotected by body armor, kept him there.

She turned back to the entrance, in case anyone else was coming in. The white van accelerated away, kicking up grass as it went. She trotted outside to watch it go, briefly considering a stop to pick up an assault rifle from one of the unconscious Canadian soldiers. A glance back showed Phineas standing up and looking around, holding a DIMMER.

A spray of turf appeared in front of the van as the tearing sound of a machine gun filled the air. Looking around, Isabella saw a Canadian Humvee-style vehicle round the corner, followed by three more; smoke blew from the barrel of the gun on the lead vehicle. The van came to a stop and the door opened, as the driver put his hands up.

Isabella smiled as she saw two Humvees peel off from the rest to deal with the van, while the other two came toward the lobby. She kept the DIMMER rifle pointed downward as she waved with her other hand. The gunner on the frontmost Humvee waved back.

The two vehicles pulled up, and three soldiers climbed out while the gunners kept an eye out for another attack. One of them, a tall, tanned man with short black hair, directed the other two to check the unconscious soldiers, then stepped up to Isabella.

"Ms. Garcia-Shapiro? I'm Warrant Officer Park. We're your ride out of here. Is that Mr. Flynn back there?" He looked back at the unconscious American soldiers on the floor. "All your doing?"

She nodded her head back at Phineas, walking toward them. "He helped."


	2. Welcome to Suffield

Colin looked at the couple on the jump seats across from him. He'd seen the video of the Dewdrop soldier against an unprepared group of enemies, and that had been fine, but it hadn't seemed real. The young woman catching a nap while leaning up against her boyfriend...she looked harmless. And yet, not two hours ago, he'd seen the aftermath of eight soldiers trying to capture her. She'd taken out six of them, while still injured - she'd taken a rifle bullet to the shoulder just two days ago, a wound that would have taken most soldiers out for weeks.

The young man with her...well, he wasn't bad to look at, even if he wasn't quite Colin's type. Tall and skinny, with a long, pointy nose and bright red hair. Even if Colin were interested, it was obvious that he adored the young woman, and vice versa.

The platoon had ridden their Jackal MWMIKs back to the airfield, where they'd all been loaded back on board the Canadian Forces cargo plane that had taken them there. Fortunately, at the far end there was an airstrip right at CFB Suffield, so they wouldn't have to worry about getting from the plane to their destination.

The young woman's eyes blinked open, and she stretched. She looked around, her eyes settling on Colin. Captain Desjardins was asleep next to him, so there wasn't anyone else around to talk to.

"I know I said it earlier, but thanks for getting us out of there," she said softly, so as not to wake the red-haired young man. "What's a warrant officer in NATO ranks? I used to be a staff sergeant, an OR-6. Back before I was captured."

"Warrant officer is OR-7."

She nodded in understanding. "Okay. So, that'd be a Sergeant First Class in America. Thank you."

"What..." Colin paused, then said, "Sorry if this is too personal, but I'm curious. What's it like? Being able to do...what you do?"

She looked at him for a long moment, and he was about to apologize for being too forward when she said, "It depends on which implant is going active. The reaction-speed one, it's like the world slows down, like somebody filmed everything in slow motion. The lung implants, it's like, 'Wow, that's breathing, I could get to like that.' The hearing one, it's like everything makes a noise and the hard part is pinning any single thing down. Put them all together...and it's like the whole world changes."

"Do you ever regret it?"

"I didn't have a choice, so no. If I'd picked this, I might. But not for the implants themselves. For what the army made me do because of them."

He nodded. "Canada hasn't been at war for a while. I'd wager we have a lot of people who aren't sure what they'll do when things hit the fan."

"That's the thing that scares me most about this. If America declares war, who can really stop them? Figure that the army they have now has the survivors of eighteen years of continuous war."

"I know. But it's different when it's your home. Going in and taking over somebody else's is a different fight from reunifying your country."

She sighed. "I guess, but, really...it didn't feel like one country when I was growing up. I don't remember the old United States."

"How'd you two meet?" Colin asked, nodding toward Phineas.

"He bought me after I got captured."

Colin stiffened, glaring at Phineas. _So. Slave-owner. She seems to like him, though. Stockholm syndrome? She fell in love with her captor?_

"Nothing like that," Isabella said, spotting his reaction. "He was..." She paused for a moment. "He invented the tumbler bomb, and had just seen real casualties from it for the first time. So he was feeling guilty for a whole lot of deaths. And a little drunk. And he wandered into the auction house, and he _swears_ he doesn't remember bidding, but he ended up buying me."

"And made use of his 'property'?" Colin said dubiously.

"Never. It took me months to convince him that I was interested. He never laid a finger on me that I didn't want."

Colin looked at her in surprise. "Never?"

"Not even once. Perfect gentleman."

"Huh."

"How about yourself?" she asked. "Park - a Korean name?"

"Yeah. Third generation. Garcia-Shapiro is Mexican and Jewish, yes?"

"Yeah. My father was Jewish - he died when I was just a toddler. We were visiting my mother's family in Santa Fe when the bomb went off, and I was the only one who survived. I grew up in an orphanage, and then got drafted, and here we are. How'd you end up in this line of work?"

Colin shrugged. "I grew up in a rough part of Vancouver, without a lot of money. Got into lots of fights in the streets. Lost a few, won more. There were always rumors that American troops were going to jump the border and take it over, to make up for losing Los Angeles. I..." He paused, thinking of his sisters and brothers-in-law and nieces and nephews. "I wanted to make sure my family stayed safe. After I got in, I realized I'd found my place. A few slots opened up in the Special Operations Regiment after a year or so, and I applied. They decided I was good enough to try out, and apparently I've been good enough to stay."

"OF-7's nothing to sneeze at, especially in CSOR," Isabella said encouragingly. "Anyone waiting for you back at base?"

"Nah. There's been a few guys every now and then, but nothing's worked out."

* * *

Vanessa Doofenshmirtz paced the floor of her office and stared at the clock. _Five minutes until the head of this new Project Obelisk shows up, and my top scientist isn't here yet. Where the hell is he?_ Her intercom buzzed, and Preston's voice came out. "Sorry, Ms. Doofenshmirtz, but Dr. T says it'll be a few more minutes until his experiment finishes. He'll be up here as soon as he can."

She cursed fluently in French and English before pushing the intercom button again. "Thanks, Preston. Keep me posted. ETA on the VIP?"

"Just got an update. His car just pulled up out front. Want me to hold him?"

She sighed and mentally cursed her top scientist, again. "No, just send him in."

"Will do."

She crashed into her chair, spinning around to look at the Toronto skyline and taking deep breaths to calm herself. Doofenshmirtz Biosciences had been chosen to work with Defense Research and Development Canada on some new super-secret project. Jean Blanchard, DRDC Director of Advanced Research, had called her in person to request this, and sent some new DRDC hotshot who'd just defected from America. Allegedly, this morning's dust-up in Fort Frances was related, which made her wonder just what the heck was going on.

 _So this ex-pat DRDC researcher is about to show up, and my top scientist is puttering around in his lab. This is the last thing I need._

Vanessa had left the US after her father's death, moving up to Toronto with her mother. Her mother had taken the opportunity to place her within the financial company she ran, and Vanessa had found a niche. A couple under-appreciated but brilliant scientists, and she'd turned a minor bioscience research firm into an industry powerhouse with steady contracts in both civilian and military fields. It was nominally a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Doofenshmirtz Financial conglomerate, but her mother let her run it without interference. After all, it made money, and beyond that, Mom didn't much care. Vanessa had dealt with her father for years; managing scientists was second nature for her at this point.

The intercom buzzed again. "The VIP just hit the top floor. Are you ready?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," Vanessa said, and straightened her shoulders. She was in charge of Doofenshmirtz Biosciences, and she had to make sure anyone who came in here knew it.

The door opened, and Preston escorted a tall young man with bright green hair in. He was dressed impeccably in a sharp grey suit, with a cream-coloured shirt and violet tie. Vanessa recognized him on sight, even though she hadn't seen him since her father's funeral.

"Ms. Doofenshmirtz, this is..." Preston began.

"We've met," Vanessa interrupted him. "Ferb? What are you doing here?"

He smiled at her as Preston bowed out, closing the door behind him. "I come bearing some of the hottest biomedical research in the world, actually," Ferb said.

"Sit, sit," Vanessa said, waving him to a chair. "My top researcher's running late, as usual. I heard about your father. Did you find who did it?"

Ferb paused, a bit uncomfortably, and said, "Yes."

"How did you end up here? I would have figured that General Archer wouldn't let you out of his sight."

"We didn't give them a choice. We defected. Phineas is on his way out to CFB Suffield now - that's where we're setting up. The little fracas in Fort Frances was the Americans trying to grab him and Isabella again."

"Who's Isabella?" Vanessa asked.

Ferb smiled thinly. "The reason we left."

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. "That sounds like a story."

The intercom buzzed. "Doc T. just came out of the elevator," Preston said.

Vanessa felt herself relax. "Thanks, Preston."

"Doc T.?" Ferb asked.

The door opened, and she looked up. Her top researcher, the youngest Ph.D in Canadian history, was _finally_ arriving to the meeting she'd wanted to pre-brief him about. He was tall and gangly, with black curly hair cut short against his dark skin. A pristine white lab coat swished about his knees as he walked. "It's about time," she said. "This is Ferb Fletcher, of Fletcher-Flynn Research. Ferb, this is Baljeet Tjinder, my leading research scientist."

" _Doctor_ Baljeet Tjinder, thank you," Baljeet said huffily, shaking Ferb's hand and then taking a seat next to him. "What is so urgent that you need my attention? I have epithelial cell cultures that I must return to."

"Remember that Project Obelisk thing that we were told about?" Vanessa said. "This is it."

"Yes," Ferb said, turning on his tablet. "Project Obelisk is about recreating and enhancing Project Dewdrop, a Southwestern Concord bio-research project. Effectively, what Dewdrop was able to do was provide biomechanical enhancements that created...well, bluntly, a super-soldier."

Baljeet rolled his eyes. "Seriously? I know that various American governments tried to create super-soldiers, but to the best of my knowledge they all failed."

"Not all," Ferb said. "I've seen the last remaining Dewdrop soldier in action." He held up the tablet. "Observe."

Vanessa sat back and watched the screen as Ferb turned it so that both she and Baljeet could view it. "This one was known as India One. She was killed by a tumbler bomb," Ferb said.

Vanessa sat back and watched the video impassively. A young woman ran on screen and jumped up, out of sight. Four soldiers came in following her. "US Navy SEALs," Ferb said, and Vanessa nodded. The woman leapt down and, almost blurring from speed, killed the SEALs with their own weapons.

"Are we certain that is not special effects?" Baljeet asked dismissively. "It looks questionable."

"Ferb wouldn't lie about this," Vanessa said.

Ferb smiled at her. "I've seen a Dewdrop soldier in action. She ran a hundred yards in ten seconds, carrying someone, despite getting shot in the process."

"The world record pace is nine and a half seconds. Are you sure you saw what you _think_ you saw?" Baljeet said, crossing his arms.

"Very. I also watched the live video of another being captured. The speed was comparable. I don't have that video with me, but I can make it available to you."

Vanessa nodded. "Okay. So what does DRDC want from us?"

"Two things," Ferb said. "First, another researcher or two to help Phineas and Isabella reproduce the implants. And, second, once we get them designed, we'll need somebody to actually do the manufacturing."

"Who _is_ this Isabella person you keep mentioning?" Vanessa asked. "Phineas's girlfriend or something?"

Ferb laughed. "Yes. And also, the last Dewdrop soldier."

Vanessa paused. "Oh. I...see. So, what's in this for Doofenshmirtz Biosciences?"

"The intent is to ramp these up for general military use, and work on them for civilian use as well, as soon as they can be declassified. You'd get exclusive patent rights for both, with the civilian rights going into effect at declassification."

Her eyebrows went up. "Oh. That's..."

Ferb smiled widely. "A nice bump in Doofenshmirtz Financial's bottom line."

"I think so, yes." She turned to Baljeet. "So, _Doctor_ Tjinder...are you interested?"

He frowned. "I would like a closer look at your data before I decide. Where is this research being carried out?"

"DRDC Suffield." Ferb handed him a thumb drive. "The contents of that drive are Obelisk-classified."

"Understood," Baljeet said. "May I go look it over before I agree to be sent to Siberia just as winter starts?"

"Hey, it's not like it's Cold Lake," Vanessa said. "It could be worse."

"Yes, _southern_ Alberta is such an improvement over _northern_ Alberta. It might actually make it above freezing on a warm day," Baljeet said witheringly. He stood. "Thank you, Mr. Fletcher. I shall take a look at this and get back to you within the hour." He bowed his head and walked back to the doors, opening one and passing through.

Vanessa rolled his eyes. "Sorry he's such an ass. But he's the best. If anyone on my staff would be able to help you, it's him."

"It'll be fine. So how have you been?" Ferb asked.

She shrugged. " _Comme ci, comme ça._ Mom's happy with what I've been able to do, although I think she's waiting for me to decide that I'm done playing with my little toy. She'd like me to move up to the parent company, but I'm happy here. You? You said you'd found the person who killed your father. What happened?"

"It was..." Ferb paused, awkwardly. "A question for you. Who would you consider to blame - the person who gave the order, or the person who carried it out?"

Vanessa looked at him for a moment. "Both, actually."

"What if the person carrying it out were told - credibly - that they'd be executed on the spot for failure?"

"That would shift blame to the person giving the order, I think."

"That was my opinion as well. He is dead, killed by a tumbler bomb. I have had my revenge there."

"And the person who carried it out? What happened to them?"

Ferb paused again. "She..." He took a deep breath. "It was Isabella, actually."

Vanessa stared at him, blinking. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Dewdrop got sent to take out enemy scientists, among other things. They thought they were getting the head of Fletcher-Flynn Research, since Mum and Dad were co-owners. It was a mission. She tried to tell them they had the wrong target."

"She _killed_ your father and now Phineas is dating her?"

"Vanessa, do you know how many people were killed by tumbler bombs? I...yes, I was mad. Furious. She'd been living with Phineas for three months, and then we found out who the missing Dewdrop soldier was. I told the military who she was - last Monday night. Dear Lord, it's only been 4 days? Sorry, it's just been hectic. Anyway, so that whole mess is my fault. And then I watched the video monitoring Isabella as she got ready to execute her mission."

"By which you mean 'execute your father'."

"Yes. And she tried to tell them he was the wrong target. The implants had remote-control settings to cause intense pain, or to liquidate themselves and kill the user. They used the pain setting, and told her to follow orders or they'd make her girlfriend kill her. Her girlfriend was acting as mission control for her, back at the bunker they were using as a base. Eventually, on a later mission to kill Phineas and me, Isabella had to flip that switch on her girlfriend, or be killed herself."

Vanessa sat back. " _Merde._ Seriously?"

Ferb nodded. "My only regret right now is that the man who gave the orders died too quickly."

"Does your mother know?"

Ferb winced. "I hadn't thought of that. No, she doesn't."

Vanessa paused. "Wait a second. You said Dewdrop was sent to assassinate enemy scientists. How far back?"

Ferb blinked. "That's a very good question."

"Back to, say, three and a half years ago?"

"I do not know. You're wondering if..."

"Did Isabella kill _my_ father too?"

"I can ask her if you'd like."

Vanessa laughed. "She'd tell you?"

"She might."

* * *

"Hey, Holly," Marion said, bringing her a glass of tea. "Where's your friend?"

Holly smiled up at the waitress. She'd been meeting Isabella here for lunch every Saturday for several months. Now, though...

"She escaped to Canada," Holly said.

"Oh, that's good to hear!" Marion said, nodding. "Good for her. How pissed was her owner?"

"He went with her, actually," Holly said.

Marion's eyebrows shot up. "Really? That seems unusual."

"Phineas never was a 'normal' kind of guy."

"Phineas? Wait, Phineas Flynn? Is that what happened in that big kerfuffle at Fletcher-Flynn?"

"Yeah. Both Phineas and his brother fled to Canada with Isabella. The mayor's pissed, the military is furious, and there isn't a lot that either can do about it."

Marion shook her head. "What a shame," she said insincerely. She pulled out her order pad. "So, what'll you have today?"

"Chicken caesar salad, please." Holly said without looking at the menu.

"Sure thing." She headed back to the kitchen to call in the order.

 _She did it. She's free_ , Holly thought. And that didn't even begin to cover the mess that Danville politics had become with the largest local defense contractor suddenly losing its leadership like that. Phineas and Ferb's secretary, Carla, had been running herself ragged trying to keep up with everything, and then three days after they'd left, the computer systems had all encrypted themselves, locking everyone out. The government had begun work on nationalizing the company, but various members of Congress were arguing about the legality of doing that, and others were questioning whether it mattered since it appeared all the data was gone.

The mayor was so busy he hadn't been able to work on buying himself a replacement slave, since anti-slavery activists had helped his last one escape to Mexico. Holly was glad for Mitsuko, but her freedom meant he was leering at Holly more than usual. Black women like Holly usually weren't his type, but he wasn't feeling picky right at the moment, and she had to suppress her urge to punch his lights out.

Movement across from her made her look up. A middle-aged man, swarthy with carefully-set jet-black hair, wearing a rumpled suit, smiled at her as he slid into the booth. "Pardon me. May I have a moment of your time, Miss Washington?" he asked in a smooth voice.

She glanced over at Marion, who was watching from a distance. "You've got until my lunch gets here. Deal?"

He nodded. "I have been asked to convey a message to you. Some of my associates, despite my warnings, decided that they should attempt to use you to send a message to the Mayor."

Holly froze, glaring at him. She'd been attacked a couple weeks back, walking home from the weekly pizza night with the girls. Isabella had been with her; it had been the first clue that Isabella wasn't just the ex-operations soldier she had claimed to be, because she'd taken out the attackers pretty much single-handedly. Now that Isabella was gone...

"I remember," Holly said.

"Rest assured, no other attack will be made against you. Someone mistook your friendship with the slave who just liberated herself as your ownership. The folks who made that mistake have, as I understand it, been suitably punished."

"I just heard, actually. They're pleading guilty to first-degree assault to avoid liberation charges." She frowned. So far, enslavement was only a punishment on the books for two crimes: treason, and attempting to help slaves escape. Five years minimum as a chattel slave, and potentially the rest of your life, was a brutal sentence for anything, and a jail term to avoid it was an easy choice to make.

He sighed. "I warned them, the fools. Ah, well. I just wanted to have a word with you. You may, in your position as the mayor's assistant, come into information that we may find useful. Obviously, I don't want you to break any laws or trust in doing so, but anything you can tell us would be appreciated." He handed her a card with a European email address on it, and no other identifying information. "Send email to that address, we'll get back to you when we can. I'd suggest using an anonymous account from a burner phone, just to be safe."

"Are you just being annoyingly vague for the hell of it, or do you have a point?"

He grinned at her. "We shall see, Miss Washington." He slid out of the booth just as Marion arrived with her salad.

"What was that all about?" Marion asked, watching him leave.

"I wish I knew."

* * *

The military SUV stopped briefly at the guard checkpoint, lit up against the darkening twilight, and the guard asked to see all of their ID. Phineas fished the lanyard they'd given him out from his jacket, and the guard shone a flashlight on it briefly before going on to Isabella's. The two of them had been put on the payroll of some organization called Defence Research and Development Canada, which had a research facility that shared space with the Canadian Forces on the base in Suffield.

Once everyone's identification had been checked, the guard waved them through. Their plane had landed at the airfield across the highway from the rest of CFB Suffield, which was where the Canadian government had decided to put them for now. The rest of 11 Platoon was following behind once their vehicles were unloaded, but Phineas and Isabella were sharing a ride over with Captain Desjardins and Warrant Officer Park. CFB Suffield had provided a corporal to drive them over.

The SUV pulled to a stop outside a row of four small, single-wide mobile homes. "I've been told you get this entire row," the corporal said.

"Yes, that is how I understand it," Captain Desjardins said. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "Park, you and I will be sharing unit one. Monsieur and Mademoiselle will be sharing unit two, if that is acceptable?"

Isabella nodded as Phineas said, "That's fine."

"Who's in three and four?" Isabella asked.

"Monsieur Fletcher will have number three, and any additional researchers will be in number four. If need be, we can set up more." He flipped through some key rings, and handed two to Phineas and Isabella.

"Thank you," Isabella said.

"I've been told to tell you that you're free to walk about the base," the corporal said, turning to Isabella and Phineas. "But for your security, we'd like you to check in with either Captain Desjardins or Warrant Officer Park first."

"And if you need to go off base for any reason, we can make that happen as well," Captain Desjardins added. "We've all seen that you need some sort of security detail."

"Thank you. All of you. I think, right now, we just need to rest," Phineas said.

"Sounds good to me," Park muttered.

"We will check in tomorrow about groceries and clothes," Desjardins said. "We can have breakfast in the base canteen beforehand."

The corporal climbed out and opened the back door, letting Phineas and Isabella out of the vehicle. The cold Alberta wind cut through Phineas's jacket, which was fine for Danville but was clearly going to be inadequate for the prairie. "A bit brisk, eh?" the corporal asked with a grin. "Warm front went through today, it's only five below. Celsius. Not sure what that is in American units."

"It's not the temperature, it's the wind," Phineas said, trying to keep his teeth from chattering.

"Head in, I'll grab your stuff," the corporal said, opening the back of the SUV. Phineas didn't argue, but instead trotted toward the door to #2. His cold fingers fumbled with the keys, and he dropped them. Behind him, Isabella stifled a laugh as she reached past him to unlock the door. He picked up his keys and stepped inside. She followed, looking around. The corporal came up behind both of them, setting down their backpacks just inside the door. "Nice meeting you, folks," he said, closing the door as he left. Phineas felt himself get warmer as the door closed.

"Let me guess, your implants help keep you warm?" he asked, looking at Isabella.

She nodded, a grin on her face, and took his hand. Her fingers were still warm against his own. "They help, at least. Let's see what we've got in here."

They hung their jackets by the door and explored their new residence a bit. They had entered into a living room with a sofa, two chairs, and a television. Off to one side, a neat and simple kitchen held a small dining table. At one end was a master bedroom with en-suite bathroom and closet; the other held a hallway leading to a second bathroom and a second bedroom.

"It's a bit of a step down from your place in Danville," Isabella said. "Sorry about that."

He squeezed her hand. "I suspect I wouldn't have much freedom there any more. Even less than here."

She laughed softly. "True enough. Although I don't think you're likely to run away from here. You'd freeze before you got to the highway."

"No kidding." He paused for a moment, then said, "So, there's two bedrooms. So if you'd like one to yourself..."

She looked up at him nervously. "Would...would you like me to? I mean, now that you know who I am... _what_ I am...if you'd feel better not sharing a bed with me..."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm not worried about that. We've been sleeping in the same bed for months now. If you were going to do anything to me in your sleep, you would have by now. But I don't want to force you..."

She put a finger on his lips to silence him. "You never have forced me to do anything. Except maybe bring you along when I ran for Canada, and if you hadn't, I would have had to surrender when they found the Agonizer. If you're willing to trust me to share a bed with you..."

He slid his arms around her, pulling her close, and she nestled her head into his shoulder. "Always."


	3. Home on the Range

Isabella woke to find Phineas wrapped around her, and smiled. The first flush of dawn shone through the window, and she was warm under the blankets with her lover, skin pressed against bare skin. It hadn't even been a week since they'd last spent the night together like that, but so much had changed in that short time that it felt far longer. Sometimes she wished she could stay like this forever, just wrapped up in Phineas's love.

Unfortunately, her implants could only make it easier for her to ignore biological needs, not obviate them entirely, and right now, she needed to pee. With a quiet sigh, she lifted Phineas's arm and slipped out from under the covers. The room was slightly chilly, but fortunately the mobile home was well-insulated. She pulled open the drawers until she found the one where she'd put her clean underwear, grabbing a sports bra and a pair of panties. A quick stop in the bathroom, and she went out to the living room to do her morning stretches.

She had to take it easy on her injured shoulder, which had had to work a little too hard during the fight, but it felt good to move again. Two days in the hospital and a day of travel had meant entirely too little exercise. She ran through her cycle of stretches, moving on to bodyweight exercises. With a smile, she activated her implants and went through the momentum exercises that the Dewdrop scientists had come up with to help them learn how to handle their bodies when moving at speeds faster than humans were normally capable of. She paused and listened for a moment, and heard Phineas softly snoring in the bedroom. She deactivated the implants and ran through some katas to complete her routine.

 _He must be exhausted._ Normally Phineas showed up while she was still working out; frequently, that led to him joining her in the shower. For him to sleep through her entire routine must mean that yesterday had taken more out of him than he'd shown. He'd never really been in full-on combat before their escape, and had never shot at anyone before yesterday morning's fight. She crept up the stairs, finding him still sound asleep. She quietly retrieved a pair of jeans and a shirt, along with a pair of socks, and left him a note that she'd gone for a run. They weren't quite workout clothes, but they were the best she had right now.

Trying to fight after three months of peace had convinced her that stretches weren't enough. She put on a light jacket, then stepped outside. Her breath fogged in the chilly morning air, and she rubbed her arms briefly to warm them, then waved to the two soldiers patrolling the street. She knocked on the door to number one, next door. After a moment, Warrant Officer Park opened the door, wearing a heavy flannel robe. "What's up?"

"I need to go for a run. I figured I should let you know in case you'd like to have someone go with me."

He thought for a moment, then nodded. "Give me two minutes to get ready, and I'll go along myself."

"That works."

"Why don't you come in instead of freezing out there," he said, stepping back from the door. She followed him in, closing the door behind her. As he went into the smaller bedroom, she looked around; the mobile home he shared with the captain looked almost exactly like the one she and Phineas were sharing.

He came back down dressed in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. "We can see about taking you to Medicine Hat to go shopping today if you'd like. I assume all your stuff got left behind in the States?"

"Yeah, we had to leave everything except what fit in one backpack. Phineas picked up a few items in Fort Frances, but that was it."

"Well, there's a CANEX in Ralston, just south. That's the exchange store. If that's not enough, Medicine Hat isn't exactly a big city, but they should have most of what you need. I don't think we want to try taking you to Calgary."

"Ralston sounds fine for now."

"How long were you planning to run?"

"I don't know. Half an hour or so?"

"Okay," he said, nodding. "I haven't been around this base much, but I think I know the way around enough for that."

"Lead the way," she said. He led her out of the house, locking the door behind him.

"Fuck, I forgot how much I hate Alberta," Park said, shivering a bit. "Sorry, miss."

Isabella snorted. "I was a soldier, too, Warrant Officer. I've done more than my fair share of swearing."

"Sorry. It's hard to remember that sometimes."

"Will you be okay in the cold?"

"I'll be fine once we get running, but let's get a couple minutes of warmup in first," he said, starting to briskly walk along the side of the road in front of the houses.

"Sounds good." His legs were longer than hers, so she had to walk quickly to keep up with him.

"I..." He paused, then asked. "I'm curious - do you actually need to run to keep in shape, or...?"

"The implants help, but they can only work with the body they're stuck in. Fast reflexes don't help if your body is too out of shape to move quickly enough." She paused, and added, "And it's nice to be able to do things without them."

"That makes sense. You ready to start running?"

"Let's do this." They broke into a steady jog, and the morning's chill became easier to ignore as her body warmed up.

"Warrant Officer..." she began as they ran.

"Please, call me Colin," he said.

"That's fine, Colin. You can call me Isabella. Why is it hard to remember that I was a soldier?"

"We've got women in the Forces, but it's something like fifteen percent, and even fewer in CSOR. We haven't taken to female soldiers the way the Americans did, especially in elite units."

She nodded as they started up a slight hill. "It was necessary. All four sides were desperate for soldiers, and decided they couldn't just ignore half the population. I don't remember who did it first; it was early in the war, and I was pretty young."

"I wonder how having women in the military affected the slavery laws," Colin said.

"I'm not sure, to be honest. Might have made it easier to pass them, I know a lot of senior government types were among the first to buy their own slave girls."

"Huh."

They ran along a bit further in silence. Isabella saw that Colin was apparently chewing something over in his head.

"It's okay, you can ask," she said.

"Were you serious about Phineas never forcing himself on you?"

"Completely," she said with a laugh. "It's not Stockholm Syndrome or anything like that, or at least I don't think so. He was very concerned about whether I could really consent as his property. Even once we did start...that sort of relationship, he made sure I knew that I could stop at any time."

"I guess he doesn't fit the stereotype of a slave owner."

"He didn't fit in with the other slave owners at all. We ended up going to a party thrown by the Mayor of Danville, and it ended up being more awkward for him than for me, really. I mean, I just had to stand there and look attractive, and he had to figure out how to tell Senators that he wasn't willing to loan me out."

"Loan...ew. Folks did that?"

"It seemed to be a popular pastime among that set."

* * *

Phineas woke slowly, stretching out before he realized that he was alone in the bed. He smiled, realizing that that meant one of his favorite parts of the day was here - getting to watch Isabella working out in the morning. He climbed out of bed, shivering a bit in the cool morning air, and picked his boxer shorts up off the floor, putting them on. He idly scratched his chest and started to head to the bathroom, when he noticed a note on the nightstand.

 **Phineas -**

 **Went out for a run. Be back in a bit. Didn't want to wake you up.**

 **Love you,**

 **Isabella**

He frowned a bit, concerned that he'd missed the workout, then shrugged. He went into the bathroom to investigate his shower options. There were towels, soap, and shampoo waiting, fortunately, even if the towels were scratchy, white, and industrial, and the soap and shampoo were military-issue Cleansers, Personal, For External Use.

He turned on the water in the tub, made sure the curtain was set up, and flipped the switch to send the water up to the shower. The water was still cold, so he investigated the drawers under the sink, finding a cheap disposable razor and a small can of Cream, Shaving.

By the time he'd finished, only nicking himself once with the unfamiliar razor, the shower had warmed up. He climbed under the water, letting it sluice over him, relaxing as the previous day washed away. He had shot someone. It was just a DIMMER, not a real gun, and it had been to protect Isabella, but...he had pointed a weapon at someone and pulled the trigger, and rejoiced as they went down. He wasn't sure he liked this side of himself. It was one thing to hit someone with a shock tab in self-defense, but this felt different.

He leaned his head on the fiberglass wall of the shower and sighed. He'd always been able to distance himself from his work before the Colorado trip. Yes, he had invented a clever device that let a bomb tumble through dimensions to bypass armor and protective earthworks, but he could say he'd never dropped one of those bombs on anyone. Then he'd seen what happened to people hit by a tumbler bomb. The dimensional transport caused a bizarre implosion/explosion combination that could blast one person to cinders while leaving another almost unscathed except for an arm that was removed by a dimensional cut, leaving a fractal scorch mark in its wake.

Even before that, he'd made interesting inventions without worrying exactly what their effects would be. An innovative stealth system for airplanes was just a way to keep people safe, until it was used to sneak cruise missiles through heavily-guarded enemy airspace to hit unprotected areas in the rear. The DIMMER itself was Ferb's invention, and surely a knockout gun wasn't a problem? Until you realized it could be used to capture and enslave enemy soldiers.

The bathroom door opened. "Hey," Isabella said, closing it behind her. "Want some company?"

"I could really use that right now," he said wistfully.

He heard the rustle of her clothes coming off, and then the shower curtain rattled aside as she climbed in. He always loved looking at her, lean and muscular, and the smile on her face when she saw him told him that the feeling was mutual. "What's up?" she asked, pressing her naked body up against his own as her arms slid around him. Her skin was cold to the touch from the outside air.

"Just...thinking," he said, resting his arms around her shoulders.

"Good thoughts?" she asked dubiously.

"Not really."

"What's wrong?"

"I..." He sighed. "I'm just thinking about yesterday. I'm not used to fighting."

She nodded. "It takes getting used to. You're pretty good at it, though. You keep calm, which is the important part." She leaned up and gave him a kiss. "We need to get showered and dressed, though. We're supposed to meet Colin in about 20 minutes to go get some breakfast, and I for one am _starving_. And then after that, we're going into Ralston to do some shopping."

"Gotcha. Care to scrub my back for me?"

* * *

Ferb bundled the heavy jacket around him as he stepped off the military transport plane. Behind him, he could hear Doctor Tjinder's teeth already starting to chatter in the bitter cold that the noon sun couldn't dispel. "I never should have agreed to come here," Tjinder said, pulling his suitcase behind him with one hand as he wrapped his own jacket around himself with the other.

"It'll be fine once we're inside," Ferb said. He took a deep breath, savoring the crisp, cold scent of the prairie air, then blowing it out in a frosted puff.

Ahead of them, a military SUV was just pulling up. The driver got out and trotted over to them. "Mr. Fletcher? Mr. Tjinder?" he said in a slight Quebecois accent.

" _Doctor_ Tjinder," Tjinder said testily.

"Sorry, Doctor. Come this way, we've got housing set up for you. I'm Master Corporal Duval, they sent me over to fetch you."

Ferb followed the young man to the SUV, climbing into the passenger side. Tjinder got into the back with a glare as Duval placed his suitcase in the back before climbing into the driver's seat. Fortunately, the SUV was warm inside.

"Mr. Flynn and Ms. Garcia-Shapiro are off buying supplies in Ralston," Duval said. "They should be back in an hour or two."

"How far away from Medicine Hat are we?" Tjinder asked, leaning forward. "Or is there any civilization closer than that?"

"There's Ralston, just south, but that's mostly just housing for folks working on base. There's a CANEX there." Duval put the SUV in gear and they started away from the airfield. "A few little towns, but not really much between here and Medicine Hat. 40 klicks to the nearest full-size Timmy's, in Redcliff, although there's a little kiosk in the CANEX."

"I never should have agreed to this," Tjinder moaned into his hands.

They crossed a highway and pulled up at a security gate. Duval lowered the window, and the guard said, "Badges, please." Ferb fished his out from inside his jacket and held it up for the guard to see. After checking all of their badges, the guard nodded and waved them through.

"We've got you set up in special housing," Duval said as he closed the window. "Captain Desjardins will get you sorted out."

"Who is that?" Tjinder asked.

"Head of the platoon. We're Special Operations Regiment, Bravo Company, 11 Platoon. I'm second-in-command of the second squad."

"I do not know what that means," Tjinder said, frowning.

Ferb rolled his eyes. "Captain Desjardins is the person in charge of the group of soldiers we're working with. I've been told he'll be our interface to the rest of the base."

"Sounds about right," Duval said. "And here we are."

They had pulled up at a second security checkpoint at the end of a small pathway. A Jackal sat at the end with its gunner ready; another sat at the far end of the path. Between them, four single-wide mobile homes sat.

A soldier climbed out of the Jackal to check their badges again, comparing the names and photos to a list on his clipboard, then waved them past. The SUV stopped at the first mobile home, which had a number 1 next to the door.

"I'll go get your keys," Duval said. "You stay where it's warm."

Ferb poked at his phone a bit, checking on his email that was kept on a secure European server. The Fletcher-Flynn computer system reported several break-in attempts after the core databases had all shredded their encryption keys. He had copies of them - and the databases themselves, for that matter - but all the disks back in Danville might as well be filled with random data. He smiled thinly.

His mother was asking why he'd requested she leave so quickly. He gave her a quick synopsis that mentioned that the military had wanted to detain Isabella, and that she and Phineas had been forced to flee, while carefully not mentioning why the military had wanted Isabella so badly.

Master Corporal Duval returned, followed by a short, but muscular, man wearing an officer's uniform. Duval opened the passenger door, and the officer leaned in. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said with a slight Quebecois accent. "I am Captain Desjardins. Monsieur Fletcher, you are in number three. Doctor Tjinder, you are in number four." He pulled two rings of keys from his pocket, glanced at them, and handed one to each of them.

" _Merci, Capitaine_ ," Ferb said, drawing a smile from the Captain.

* * *

Holly muttered to herself as she stuck her fork into her reheated frozen lasagna. She wasn't normally supposed to be in on Saturdays, but it hadn't been a normal week. _I suppose it's a good thing Isabella can't meet for lunch today, since I'm too busy to leave the office._ She looked at the list of phone calls she needed to return; she'd swear the pieces of paper were multiplying on their own. The mayor had been in damage-control mode all week, but hopefully things would calm down soon.

The door to the mayor's office opened, and a short, lightly-tanned, balding man in a crisp military uniform came in. Holly recognized him; General Alexander Archer was an old friend of the mayor's, and had been Phineas and Ferb's primary sponsor in the military as head of Special Research Projects.

Holly swallowed and said, "Good afternoon, General. He might on the phone with someone right now; just give me a second to check."

"Thank you, Holly." He waited by her desk while Holly checked the phone lines.

All the lights were off, so she pushed the intercom button. "Mayor, General Archer is here to see you."

"Send him in," the mayor said. The general nodded and opened the door, walking through. He swung it closed, but it didn't quite latch, leaving a small gap that Holly could hear through.

"Alex! What brings you here?" the mayor boomed. "I suppose you've got your own shit to deal with from those traitorous bastards."

"Yeah, I've been reassigned, Dutch. That idiot Riggins is taking over Special Research Projects."

"But that was your baby! They gave it to you special! You _built_ that department, Alex!"

"And now I'm getting sent to fucking Montana. Because fucking Flynn can't keep it in his fucking pants."

"Jesus. Montana? What are you doing?"

"They want me to continue with Sledgehammer - that's what Flynn and his asshole brother were working on. Reproducing that jackoff Maybourne's Dewdrop tech."

"Why Montana?"

"Because some bright spark decided to put Sanford West in the middle of fucking nowhere, Dutch. Fort William Fucking Henry Harrison."

"The bigwigs are pissed, I take it."

The general laughed. "That's an understatement. You know how much they want Dewdrop technology."

 _What's Dewdrop? And why does the mayor know about it?_ Holly thought. To be on the safe side, she finished her lasagna and put on her telephone headset.

"Well, of course. So, let them slip through your fingers once..."

"Twice. Including one international incident. I sent a snatch team to get Flynn and the girl at the hospital in Canada. Evidently we gave her too much time to recover, because she took them down."

Holly suppressed a chuckle. She'd seen Isabella fight, and had no doubts that she'd give any snatch team a serious run for their money.

"Shit. Did the team get caught?"

"Of course. Canadians caught them all. No fatalities on either side, and that's the only reason we aren't at war with all of Europe right now."

"I hadn't heard anything."

"Well, we're still technically on a war footing, so the media's suppressing the story at our request. There's burbles going around the Internet, but Canada doesn't want to rock the boat right now, so it hasn't blown open."

"What happened to the team?"

In a pompous east-coast accent that sounded vaguely like the Secretary of State, the general said, "Negotiations are progressing," and both men laughed.

"Shame we lost the girl, Alex. I mean, I can see why Flynn went for her. I suppose if we get her back, I'm not getting a crack at her anyway."

"If they catch her, they'll send her up to Montana with me. I'm sure we can arrange a visit. Before any drastic procedures start."

"I'd owe you one."

"You already owe me more than one, Dutch. I think I'm going to need to call a few of those in before too long." He paused, and said, "I'll keep you posted as much as I can. Need to go catch my flight to the godforsaken middle of nowhere."

"You'll come out smelling like roses, Alex. You always do. Come back to visit when you can, okay?" the mayor said. She heard chairs shuffling, and punched up the first of her return phone calls.

The general waved to her on his way out, and she nodded in his direction.

* * *

Isabella looked out the window at the Alberta prairie as the SUV carried her back to the base. A blanket of snow covered the fields to either side of the road, as far as the eye could see. It reminded her of where she'd grown up, in its own way - New Mexico had its own share of wide-open spaces, and the Dewdrop bunker had been located right in the middle of one of them. _Fewer trees and more snow than home, though. There we didn't usually have more than a couple inches at any time._

They'd gone into Ralston, just south of the base, for clothes and other necessities at CANEX, the local exchange store. She'd found a nice, heavy parka, which she was pretty sure she'd need, as well as some running clothes suitable for the cold weather. After consultation with Captain Desjardins, she and Phineas had decided that phones weren't a significant security risk as long as they weren't in any of their names. They'd picked up disposable prepaid phones that could be charged up with cards sold at the CANEX. They planned to buy new phones every few months, just in case.

Fortunately, most of Phineas's money was kept outside American control, so even if his American accounts had been frozen, he still had money to work with. That was still a novelty, even after living with Phineas for three months. She'd grown up in the orphanage with basically nothing to her name, and the money she'd earned working as a soldier for the Southwest had been placed away in an account that she generally couldn't get to. She'd had access to funds while on missions, but that was different.

The SUV in front of them pulled to a stop at the security checkpoint, and after its passengers were checked, it was waved through. Corporal Oates, driving the SUV she was in, pulled up after them, and the guard asked for ID for everyone inside. Isabella showed the security badge she wore on a lanyard; Colin and Phineas did the same, as did Sergeant Hathaway in the front passenger seat. She knew that the remaining six members of Hathaway and Oates's squad was in the other SUV. _A whole squad to keep an eye on us. Ridiculous._ But then, given that the Americans had already attacked a hospital to get to her and Phineas, she supposed that she should expect a security team to go with her everywhere for a while. _Not everyone gets the Special Operations Regiment as bodyguards._ She'd heard of CSOR, of course - they were among the most special of the Canadian special forces.

The SUVs were stopped by another squad member, guarding their row of mobile homes, and waved through after IDs were once again checked. She suspected that folks would get lax with the checking eventually, but for now, they were being diligent.

Another SUV was parked in front of unit number three, and Ferb came out the front door as their vehicle rolled to a stop in front of unit number two. "You made it back," he said.

"We did. How was Toronto? Any luck?" Phineas asked.

"Quite a bit, yes. You were right, Vanessa was running Doofenshmirtz Biosciences. She's onboard with what we need, and loaned us one of her top scientists. He's in number four."

"Sweet!" Phineas said. "We grabbed a spare phone for you. We figured we should probably use burners, because we don't know how much the Americans can get out of the Canadian cell phone system."

Ferb's eyes went up, and he pulled out his phone, turning it off. "I hadn't thought about that. Thank you." He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then asked, "Isabella, may I speak with you for a moment? In private?"

"Sure. Can we go inside?"

"You two head in, I'll grab the stuff," Phineas said.

Isabella unlocked their door and let Ferb in. "What's up?"

"I have an awkward question for you. About Heinz Doofenshmirtz."

Isabella nodded. "I guessed, once I heard who we were dealing with. What did you want to know?"

"Did you...?" Ferb trailed off, then straightened his shoulders. "Did you kill him? I know electronics and infiltration was your specialty, and that matches how he died. I'm sorry, but Vanessa asked me to find out."

"No. He was one of the first Dewdrop kills, but it wasn't me. Tyfani - Echo One - did it. We were all watching from the command center, because it was Echo group's first kill."

Ferb exhaled in relief. "Thank you. I'm sorry, but..."

"I get it. Since we're supposed to work with her, it would have been _awkward_. She might not be as forgiving as you were."

"I knew you as a person before I found out. It...helped. I'm still working on it. Thank you for being honest with me once you could."

The door swung open, and Phineas came in carrying several bags. "Sorry. Did I take long enough?"

"Yeah, it's fine," Isabella said.

* * *

Ferb knocked on Phineas and Isabella's door; Isabella opened it with a smile, letting him and Baljeet in. "Come on in out of the cold, both of you," she said.

"Thank you," Ferb said, ushering the scientist in. "We'll go hit the exchange tomorrow for groceries and anything else you need, Doctor Tjinder."

"That would be nice," he said. "I had to leave almost everything behind in Toronto."

Inside the house, Phineas leaned in from the kitchen. "Sorry, dinner's running a bit late, I'm still finding everything in the kitchen here. Should be ready in about fifteen minutes."

"That's fine," Ferb said. "Phineas, Isabella, this is Doctor Baljeet Tjinder, from Doofenshmirtz Biosciences. Doctor Tjinder, this is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro, last of the Dewdrop project, and in the kitchen is Phineas Flynn, my step-brother and co-inventor of the tumbler bomb."

"Welcome, Doctor Tjinder. Let me take your coat. May I call you Baljeet?" Isabella asked.

"I would prefer not, thank you," the doctor said as he and Ferb handed her their coats.

"Oh. Okay. Please, have a seat, Doctor Tjinder," she said after a momentary hesitation. Behind the doctor's back, Ferb rolled his eyes. Isabella saw, and a quick hint of a smile was quickly stifled.

Ferb took a seat on the couch, while Doctor Tjinder perched on the edge of one of the chairs. Isabella was returning from dropping off their coats when somebody else knocked on the door. She rushed over, revealing a tall, muscular Asian man - probably Korean, if Ferb was guessing right - in BDUs with a Warrant Officer's insignia on the shoulder.. "Colin!" she said. "Welcome. I'm glad you could make it."

The soldier gave her an easy grin as he came in. "Beats the base caf, I'm sure."

"Hey, breakfast was pretty decent. Let me take your coat," she said.

He handed her his coat and said, "You seemed to enjoy it, yes."

"It's the implants," she said, ducking down the hall to drop off the coats. The soldier came over and sat on the couch, stretching out his legs and nodding to Ferb and Doctor Tjinder.

Isabella returned after a moment. "Colin, this is Ferb Fletcher and Doctor Baljeet Tjinder," she began. "Doctor Tjinder's on loan from Doofenshmirtz Biosciences to help with our research. Ferb, Doctor Tjinder, this is Warrant Officer Colin Park. He's second in command to Captain Desjardins. Is the Captain coming, Colin?"

"Nah, he's meeting with the base commander tonight. Nice to meet you, Ferb, Doc," Colin said, shaking Ferb's hand and leaning over to extend a hand to Doctor Tjinder. Tjinder bristled a bit at the shortened nickname, but extended his hand and shook. "Call me Colin, I think we're going to be working together pretty closely."

"Oh?" Isabella asked, taking a seat in the other chair and curling her legs underneath herself.

"The Captain was saying he wants me to be your primary liaison with the platoon, and with the base in general. So I'll probably be hanging around a lot."

"Well, glad to have you around, then," Isabella said.

"So about your implants," Doctor Tjinder said. "I have seen the presentation that Mr. Flynn and Mr. Fletcher made before they had a sample to work from. Is it accurate?"

"I actually haven't looked at it," Isabella said. "Sorry, I've been kind of busy running for my life and recovering from a gunshot."

Colin's eyebrows went up. "Seriously? I mean, I saw you in action yesterday, and you looked fine."

Isabella gave an embarrassed grimace. "The implants help accelerate healing. Which is the other reason I was shoveling down food at breakfast - keeping them active requires a lot of calories."

"Fascinating," Doctor Tjinder said. "What does it do to accelerate the healing process?"

"I really don't know. Dr. Vargas or Dr. Conway would be able to tell you - they were the team that invented the implants."

"Can I meet them?" Doctor Tjinder asked.

"They're dead, unfortunately. The Dewdrop bunker was hit by a tumbler bomb just before the war ended. Everyone inside died, and all their notes were destroyed," Isabella said.

Doctor Tjinder deflated. "Oh. I suppose that was too much to hope. There were no backups?"

Isabella winced. "The backups were also destroyed just before the war ended."

"Let's not get too involved in shop talk yet," Ferb said. "We've had a rather stressful week, and we can start better on Monday if we relax a bit this weekend."

* * *

"General Archer?" Higgs said, leaning in his open office door as he worked on unpacking his things. He didn't want to work on Sundays normally, but he wanted his office set up before Monday morning. Sergeant Higgs had come along with him, and was setting up her own desk, just outside his office.

"Yes, Higgs?"

"You wanted an update if anything interesting happened to Fletcher's cell phone. An intelligence asset designated 492 has cell phone location information within the Canadian network, and sent us a bit of news. He's moved, here's the latest." She walked in and handed him a sheet of paper.

He scanned it quickly. It said that Fletcher's cell phone had left Toronto and gone to CFB Suffield, a name he didn't recognize off-hand. "Where's this Suffield?" he asked as he kept reading.

"Just across the border, sir. About 300 miles north, in Alberta."

He nodded in acknowledgement. Fletcher had gone with a researcher from Doofenshmirtz Biosciences, a Baljeet Tjinder, Ph.D. Fletcher's phone had suddenly been turned off, but a prepaid phone had come online almost immediately thereafter. Archer grinned.

"Okay. Designate Tjinder's phone as Tango One and track it. Designate this new prepaid as Romeo One. Find any other phones that are on overnight near either of those, and find the owners. Add ones with known owners to Uniform group, prepaid to Romeo group. Let me know what you've found tomorrow."

"Yes, sir."


	4. We Meet Again

**Trigger warning: suicide, death**

* * *

"Wait, you mean we can have a real Christmas tree?" Isabella asked, stunned, as they sat around the lab's break room table for lunch. Talk had turned to the upcoming holiday, now just two weeks away, as they took a break after Isabella had sparred with some of the CSOR soldiers. Against prepared opponents, she had been able to score blows that would have disabled them when facing three at a time, but four at a time had been able to defeat her at least part of the time.

Ferb and Doctor Tjinder had stayed behind in the lab, poring over the footage from the sparring matches, but Isabella had declared that she needed food, and Phineas and Colin had accompanied her to the break room.

"As opposed to what?" Phineas asked.

"Well, the orphanage never had a real one. We had this old artificial one that got reused year after year. We'd all try to be extra good for a couple weeks before it went up so that the nuns might pick us to be the one to put the star on top."

"...Aww?" Colin said.

She grinned. "Well, the little kids would."

"And then in the military?" Phineas asked.

"There was a tiny little aluminum one in the common area. That was about it. We didn't have any way to give each other presents, really, so it wasn't a big deal. It was just a day when we didn't have training."

Colin and Phineas nodded to each other. "We have to fix that," Phineas said.

"Yep. Should be able to fit a nice 7-foot balsam fir in your living room," Colin said. "CANEX will have decorations."

"Can we get a star?" Isabella turned to Phineas eagerly.

He laughed. "Of course. And you can put it on top of the tree."

She felt inordinately pleased at this idea.

* * *

Holly sat down in the park, looking around and trying not to look nervous. She'd turned off her cell phone and left it at home, then gone for a walk around town. Eventually, she'd ended up several miles away from both home and work, and found a small convenience store that sold, among other things, prepaid phones. She paid cash for a cheap one and enough minutes to keep it alive for quite a while, then walked down to the nearby park.

She pulled the phone out of her purse and turned it on. It said she had a small balance to start with, and she punched in the code on her card as well. She created an account on a European email service, and sent it the code that it texted to her cell phone. With that dealt with, she took a deep breath and found the white card she'd kept hidden. She typed a quick message into the email app.

 **Mayor is talking to General Archer. Something's up but not sure what. Something called Dewdrop and Sledgehammer going on somewhere called Sanford West.**

Another deep breath, and she pressed the send button. The message vanished, and she glanced around to see if anyone noticed.

She was about to turn off the phone when it vibrated in her hand. A return message had come in.

 **Thank you. If you hear more about this, please keep us posted.**

A faint smile crossed her face as she powered the phone off and put it in her purse. She stood and set off toward home.

* * *

Vanessa was just packing up her things when her phone buzzed briefly. A quick glance at it showed a text from an unfamiliar number, and she frowned as she unlocked it.

 **I'm in town for a meeting tomorrow morning, care to meet up for dinner tonight?**

She rolled her eyes, and was torn between ignoring it and correcting the sender.

 **I think you have the wrong number.**

She put her laptop in her bag, adding in a few papers she wanted to read at home. Not that she necessarily would, but she liked to have the option.

Her phone buzzed again. **My apologies, Vanessa, I forgot that my number changed. This is Ferb.**

 _Oh. That's different._ She only had to think a moment - her plans tonight were just to hang out at home and maybe read the research papers she'd just put in her bag. A nice dinner out would be a pleasant change-of-pace.

 **Sure. Should I pick you up at your hotel?**

 **Please. I'm at the Royal York.**

 **I'll be there at 6:30.**

 **Excellent. I look forward to it. How should I dress?**

She grinned. **Can you do suit and tie?**

 **Consider it done.**

* * *

Director Blanchard had called Ferb yesterday to check on their status, and had been pleased to find that Ferb felt that Phineas and Doctor Tjinder had Project Obelisk well in hand. He'd asked Ferb to come to Toronto for consultation, and to discuss his next project.

Ferb had, rather optimistically, packed two suits, one for the meeting tomorrow and a spare in case of...well, in case of something like this. He looked at them, pondering. He'd worn the grey with cream shirt and violet tie when he met her last time, so he should probably save that for tomorrow. But he liked it so much more than the brown suit with the white shirt and green tie.

He sighed dramatically. Really, he was overthinking this. He'd gotten over his crush on her years ago. They were just going to have a nice dinner together as old friends. He certainly wasn't looking for anything more than that. He couldn't bear the thought of giving up Vanessa after three dates, and that had been his rule for years now - no more than three dates with anyone, no letting anyone stay in his life permanently. It was safer for them, with him as a target, and safer for him, not having to worry about losing someone he truly cared about.

He quickly shaved - green hair was distinctive, but it meant that if he didn't keep his five o'clock shadow trimmed, he generally looked like his face was getting moldy. He looked at the two suits and made a decision, pulling the brown suit off the hanger.

A moment later, he was dressed appropriately. He swiped a cloth over his shoes and put them on, then looked in the mirror to straighten his tie. A quick comb through his hair, and he was set with five minutes to spare.

A knock on the door startled him, and he looked through the peephole. A short, stocky blonde man in a black suit was waiting; Ferb recognized him as Sergeant Calhoun, the head of his protective detail. That must mean that the rest of Calhoun's squad were outside, waiting patiently. He opened the door, nodding to them. "Just about set, gentlemen."

"Any word on where you're going?" Calhoun asked dubiously.

"Not yet, no. I'm sure Ms. Doofenshmirtz will choose somewhere suitable."

Calhoun frowned. "I don't like it, sir. Perhaps the restaurant in the hotel? I've heard it's quite good. Or perhaps you and the young lady would take room service on the balcony?"

Ferb laughed. "I commend your caution, and will make sure that our destination is chosen appropriately. I have even less desire to be taken back to the States than you have to fail in your protective duties."

Calhoun nodded acknowledgement just as Ferb's phone buzzed.

 **I'm in the lobby.**

"She's in the lobby, she says. Shall we?" Ferb asked.

Calhoun and the three other members of his detail flanked him all the way to the elevator, then rode down with him. The doors opened into the lobby in all its towering elegance, and he saw Vanessa waiting in one of the couches. She stood as she saw him, with a soft smile on her face.

She'd dressed up nicely herself, in an elegant emerald-green dress that came down to her ankles and almost matched his tie. A black wool wrap covered her shoulders to protect from the Toronto winter.

She glanced wryly at his escorts. "Surely they're not here to protect you from me."

Calhoun cracked a smile, and Ferb laughed. "No, just making sure nobody tries to repatriate me against my will. They've been dying to know where we're going."

She nodded. "I was thinking Canoe, which is just around the corner, in the top of the TD Bank Tower. Is that suitable, gentlemen?"

Calhoun visibly relaxed. "That will do nicely. We've worked with the staff there in the past."

"Shall we go, then? Our reservation is at 7."

* * *

"Confirmation, General. Romeo One is Fletcher," Higgs said. "He's in Toronto, meeting with Vanessa Doofenshmirtz. 834 has eyes on him. Four guards. Should we prepare a snatch team?"

General Archer smiled. "No. Just one isn't enough. Keep me posted, but if any two of the targets are somewhere we can get them, start preparing a snatch."

Higgs nodded. "Yes, sir. Still no confirmation on which ones Romeo Two and Three are."

After analyzing what they got off of the Canadian cell records, they'd identified two cell phones that were probably being used by Flynn and Echo Three. They'd designated them as Romeo Two and Three, but which one was which was proving more difficult. Unfortunately, they could get tower positioning for the phones, but not any call or text records.

The irony of the situation both amused and annoyed him. Fort Harrison was pretty much just across the border from Suffield - about 300 miles, almost due south. By some quirk of fate, both the Sledgehammer project and its Canadian equivalent had been sent to bases in the middle of nowhere in the prairie west. They were far too well-protected in Suffield, though, and his superiors had told him not to make any attempts there. The attack in Fort Frances had heated things up too much between Canada and America as it was, and another attempt would need more certainty than an attack on a Canadian Forces base could ever promise. His best shot of capturing any of them was if they left the base - and since it had its own airstrip, that probably would mean somewhere far away, like Toronto.

"Thank you, Higgs. That'll be all."

* * *

Vanessa swirled her wine in her glass, then finished the last swallow. The lights of the city shone out below them, moving and twinkling, as the waiter cleared away their dessert plates. In the distance, the CN Tower stood tall, with the dome of the Rogers Centre behind it.

The dinner had been excellent, as expected, and Ferb had looked very pleased with it as well. "So, how often do you expect to be back?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Not sure yet. I'll know more tomorrow."

"Are you flying back tomorrow night, then?"

"That's the plan."

She nodded, trying to figure out how to broach the subject she'd been avoiding all night.

"I...spoke to Isabella," Ferb said cautiously.

Vanessa's eyebrows went up. _I see I'm not the only one who's been tap-dancing around this._ "And?"

"She says that she was not responsible, but she knows who was."

"Really? Did she tell you who, then?"

He glanced around the restaurant. "Yes. Not here."

"I understand. Shall we, then?"

She paid the bill, waving off Ferb's attempts to cover part of it.

"I'll get the next one?" he offered, and she decided that could be argued when it happened. If it happened.

They walked back to Ferb's hotel, flanked by his security escorts. She moved in circles that were protected by the RCMP on a regular basis, but she didn't recognize these bodyguards.

"Would you care to join me upstairs, so we can continue the discussion we were having at the restaurant?" he asked.

"That sounds good," she said. They rode up to his room on the 15th floor, and he let her in. The room was a small two-room suite, with a front room containing a sofa and two chairs around a small table. A fireplace on one wall was dark; across the room, a television sat atop a cabinet.

"We'll be next door if you need anything," Sergeant Calhoun said.

"Thank you, Sergeant," he said, closing the door.

"You got the government to cover this?" she asked, looking around.

"No, I decided it was worth the extra. For me, and the good sergeant and his men." He took his coat off and set it on one of the chairs; the tie followed, and he unbuttoned the top button of his shirt. It looked very good on him; while he wasn't muscular, the shirt was clearly tailored to him, and revealed the firmness underneath. She felt herself getting a bit warm, and took off her wrap; with a nod, he took it from her and lay it on top of his jacket.

She took a seat on the sofa. "So, about my father?" she asked.

"Care for a drink?" he asked, browsing through the minibar hidden in the cabinet.

 _This doesn't sound like good news._ "Sure. Scotch and soda?"

He smiled and poured two, handing one to her. He sat down in a chair across from her, taking a sip and nodding appreciatively.

"So, what's the deal?" she asked.

"Apparently your father was the first successful mission for Echo group."

"Which was...sorry, it's all running together."

"Echo was electronic infiltration and sabotage. Isabella's group."

"But not Isabella's mission."

"No. It was a mission for Echo One, a Tyfani Kolinsky."

Vanessa frowned. "So what happened to Ms. Kolinsky?"

"She was cornered while attempting to assassinate General Riggins, who was leading a research project in Wisconsin."

"Captured?" Vanessa asked enthusiastically.

"She committed suicide rather than let the remote kill system be used on her. Put her pistol to her temple and blew her own brains out."

"That was a better solution?"

"The remote kill system - the Liquidator, as they called it - killed by melting the implants. Including the ones in the lungs. They suffocated, between the lungs themselves being half-destroyed and what was left being full of...I believe the term Isabella used was 'snot'. It certainly matches what was found in the autopsies."

Vanessa winced. "I..."

Ferb continued, "Tyfani Kolinsky was fifteen when they drafted her into the program. Nineteen when she killed your father. Two weeks shy of her twenty-first birthday when she died."

Vanessa took a gulp of her drink. "She was just a kid."

"A kid with no choice in the matter. Ever. Assassinate people, or die painfully."

"Jesus. What kind of monster..." She paused, looking into her glass. "I get it. I do. It's just..."

"Now you know why I said my only regret was that the general in charge of this project died too quickly."

"Yeah. And we're reproducing this thing now? Was that a good idea?"

"We're not treating it the same way. Volunteers only, who know what they're getting into. No remote kill."

"So if somebody captures an Obelisk-augmented soldier, they can reproduce the tech?"

"Yes. This is a good thing."

"Now I'm confused. Why is it good?"

Ferb sat back and smiled. "They'll never let the civilian applications get serious use until there's no security risk in doing so. Once the Americans capture one..."

"Wow. I hadn't thought of that."

"I'm hoping nobody else does either."

She smiled, and finished her drink, feeling the warmth running through her. "Hm. Between the wine and the scotch, I'm not sure I should be driving home quite yet."

"You're welcome to stay for a bit," Ferb said.

"Why don't you freshen this up, then?" she said, holding up her glass.

He stood and took it, kneeling down to look into the minibar. "Another scotch or something else?"

"Another scotch, please." She could see his shoulders moving under the shirt as he retrieved another bottle and mixed two more drinks. He returned to her with both glasses, and she patted the sofa next to her in invitation.

He sat on the edge of the couch, raising an eyebrow in question, and she slid closer to him. He sat stiffly, sipping his drink.

"Do you mind?" she asked.

"I..." He paused, and she could feel his nervousness. "I've avoided relationships. I'm too dangerous to be around."

She laughed, just a bit, then turned to him. The earnest concern on his face almost made her want to laugh again. "You think I don't realize that? It's not like being with me is perfectly safe either. Especially after the war starts."

He paused, staring at her, and took a sip of his scotch. He nodded slowly and sat back. She leaned into him, and his arm went around her.

"So how often do you plan to come back here?" she asked.

"I could probably arrange every couple weeks, if needed. Progress reports. Things like that."

She looked up at him. His face was just inches away. "If you had the proper incentive?"

"That would certainly help," he said, and leaned down to kiss her.

* * *

Ferb lay in the king-sized bed, listening to Vanessa's slow breathing as she slept, his arm around her as he spooned behind her. _This was a mistake_ , he thought.

 _I shouldn't have done this. Now..._

Vanessa twitched a bit, pressing herself into him.

 _I can't stop at three dates this time. We've been friends too long..._

 _She'll be in danger being near me. I shouldn't have done this. I was weak._

He ran his hand down her bare side, down to her thigh, and back up to her stomach, putting it around her again. She mumbled something appreciative in her sleep.

 _I'd blame the Scotch, were it not for the fact that I knew I wanted this before I even flew back here. And, apparently, so did she._

That was the thing, ultimately. She knew, better than anyone, what risks he lived under. They'd both lost their fathers to targeted attacks by the same people who had, later, tried to kill Ferb as well. And she had, apparently, decided that it was worth the risk.

He chuckled silently to himself. He'd finally convinced Phineas to try a relationship with Isabella by pointing out that she was an adult who could make her own decisions. He supposed it was time to take his own advice.

* * *

Quiet beeps were coming from somewhere.

Vanessa cracked an eye open and looked up. Ferb's phone was on the nightstand next to her. The clock next to it said 7:30am.

The bed shifted behind her, and she felt Ferb reach across her to swipe his finger across the screen, silencing the phone. He kissed her bare shoulder as he lowered himself back to the bed, his hand running down her back.

"Morning," he whispered.

She groaned incoherently. One of the biggest advantages of running her own company had been setting her own hours, and that meant that for her, 7:30am was something that happened to other people.

"I'll go take the first shower," he said quietly, his hand sliding across her waist as he climbed out of bed.

She sighed, and pushed herself up. "'Sokay. I'll join you."

"That might not be good for getting us out of here on time."

She rolled onto her side, looked up at him, and smiled, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "No?"

His eyes flicked down to her chest, bared by the blanket now that she'd rolled off of her front, then back up to her face. "I don't think we have time for a rematch," he said.

She laughed. "That's okay. Let's go."

* * *

Ferb walked down the hall in DRDC's Toronto research center, whistling happily. He'd been up with Vanessa for a while last night, and she'd ended up spending the night. Neither of them had been pleased at his 7:30am wakeup call, but hopefully the two cups of coffee could get him through this meeting successfully.

He came to the director's secretary's desk at 8:57. A middle-aged Korean woman sat at the desk, typing. "Your name?" she asked without looking up.

"Ferbs Fletcher."

She looked up at him and nodded. "Have a seat. Director Blanchard will be with you in just a moment." She returned to her typing.

Ferb sat, pulling out his phone to catch up on the day's email while he waited. The two messages waiting were quickly dispatched, and he pulled up an article he had been meaning to read.

He finished the article, and looked up at the secretary, who was still typing. He glanced at the clock, and saw that it was almost 10 minutes past his appointment. With a shrug, he found another article to read.

"Mr. Fletcher?" the secretary said.

"Yes?" Ferb stood up.

"It'll just be a few more minutes."

"Oh." Ferb sat again. He pulled up the article, but had a hard time concentrating on it. Hadn't the director told him to be here at 9am on the nose? _Maybe something important came up that he needed to deal with._

"Mr. Fletcher?"

"Yes?" Ferb said, remaining in his seat.

"You can go in, he's ready for you."

"Thank you." Ferb glanced at the clock as he stood and entered the office; it read 9:23.

The office was small but well-appointed. A large desk filled most of it, while one wall was entirely a whiteboard, covered with scribbled equations and drawings. Behind the desk, a row of cabinets stood below a map of Canada. A window looked out over the nearby airfield.

A short man, with thinning black hair and a mustache that stood out against his pale skin, stood up as Ferb walked in. "Welcome, Mr. Fletcher. I'm Director Blanchard. Nice to meet you in person. Have a seat." He gestured toward a chair opposite his desk. "Coffee?"

"No, I'm good, thank you," Ferb said as he sat in the chair. It was a bit short for him, and he found himself looking up at the man on the far side of the desk.

"Suit yourself. So, you're probably wondering what I brought you here for."

"The question had crossed my mind, yes."

"Alright. You said you think you're at a point where your brother and the scientist that Doofenshmirtz Biosciences is loaning you can take it the rest of the way. Do you still feel that way?"

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"Excellent. The Americans are making noises about us kidnapping American scientists - claiming that we abducted you and your brother, and that since this would mean we struck first, that our treaty with the EU wouldn't apply. Clear balderdash, but it plays well on their news channels, especially since they censor anything opposing it. So your job is to make it easier for us to stand up our neighbors to the south."

"The tumbler shield?"

"Got it in one. You said you had an idea for it already."

"Yes. I may need to borrow Phineas occasionally, but I can probably put 80% of my time in on this."

"How much of your brother's time would you need?"

Ferb pondered for a moment. "10% or so."

"Sounds good. Make it happen. We're calling this Project Blunderbuss."

"Any reason for Blunderbuss?"

"It's randomly generated. Don't worry about it. What resources will you need?"

"For now, just myself and space to do some design work. Eventually, I'll need some testing apparatus, but I won't know just what until we get further in."

"Whatever works. I'll let the folks at Suffield know to give you whatever you need. You'll be sharing lab space with," he flipped through some papers on his desk, "Doctor Jacobi. Next building over from your current lab. He won't be thrilled, but there's a bit of a space crunch, so he'll get over it. Besides, his current project hasn't produced a damn thing we can use."


	5. Home for the Holidays

"Love you too, Mom. See you in a week, then." Phineas disconnected the video call on his tablet, and looked over at Isabella, sitting at the kitchen table chatting with Colin over breakfast. He'd come over to join them for breakfast, after going out running with Isabella that morning. Phineas tried to shove down a small spike of jealousy at how much time the two of them spent together.

She looked over at him and smiled nervously. "Did I hear right that I finally get to meet Candace and Amanda in person?"

He sighed deeply. "Yeah. I...wow. I wasn't expecting them to try something like this, but they're all coming for Christmas. I have no idea how we're going to make this work. When Ferb gets back from Toronto, we can see what we can figure out."

"Are they going to stay in a hotel? I didn't catch that part."

"I think we'll see if we can put them up in the trailers here, actually. We can put one of them in the spare room, with us, and the other with Ferb. I suspect the security team would prefer that over having all of us go out to Medicine Hat every day."

"That we would," Colin said, grasping his coffee mug in both hands.

"Are you going to be here over Christmas?" Phineas asked, returning to his plate. His eggs were now cold, unfortunately, but he wasn't sure if he was really hungry. He pushed the plate away.

"You mind?" Isabella said, pointing her fork at his plate. Hers was empty, as usual, a side-effect of her implants. Using them made her especially hungry, but even without using them, her baseline metabolism was noticeably higher than usual.

"Take 'em," he said, sliding the plate over. She dove into the food with a will.

Colin shook his head at her. "Yeah, we're still here. They want us to stay with you until we've learned everything we can about fighting against enhanced soldiers."

"And then?"

Colin shrugged. "If you're ready to start testing Obelisk, they look for volunteers. If not, they may rotate in another CSOR platoon to train and keep you folks safe. Unless they decide things have calmed down enough that the MPs can take over."

Isabella swallowed down the last of Phineas's eggs, and said, "Unlikely, from what I'm hearing."

"Yeah, I know. Chicago's being uptight," Colin said.

"They're claiming we were abducted," Phineas said.

"Yeah, the slave is _so_ upset about escaping to Canada," Isabella said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, you don't count. Ferb and I are the ones who matter to them."

"Actually, Captain Desjardins will probably be away for Christmas himself. He was talking about trying to get home to Petawawa for a couple days right around Christmas," Colin said thoughtfully.

"Why?" Phineas asked.

"His daughter's first Christmas."

"Awwww," Isabella said.

"Wait, we took him away from a newborn?" Phineas said.

Colin shrugged. "Military life. His wife knew what she was getting into. They've only been married a year and a half or so."

"Yeah, if there's anything I can do to help him get away, let me know," Phineas said.

"Not on our end," Isabella said. "That's the sort of thing that his commanding officer deals with."

"Right," Colin said. "And that would leave me in charge while he's gone. Sure you want that?"

"I'm sure we can make do if need be," Isabella said with a grin.

Phineas forced down another jab of jealousy.

* * *

Isabella paced nervously around the living room, pausing to look at the Christmas tree. They'd had fun decorating it, and a few presents sat underneath - they hadn't had much chance to buy much.

The tree wasn't the problem. The fact that Christmas was in two days wasn't even the problem.

The problem was that, somewhere between the Medicine Hat airport and the base, a military SUV was carrying Phineas and Ferb, their mother, their sister, and their niece. Unless something had happened to them, and she hadn't been told yet.

She sighed. She didn't want to tell Linda and Candace what she had done, but she was sure that it was going to come up at some point. And then she was going to ruin Christmas for everyone. Even Vanessa Doofenshmirtz, whom Ferb had said was coming in to visit them over the holidays.

Outside the front door, she heard a truck turn off and the doors pop open. _Showtime._

She opened the front door to see Phineas helping his mother out of the front seat, and Candace climbing out of the back seat. Amanda, almost six, was leaning out behind her, looking around at everything in wonder. Behind them, a second SUV carrying members of their protective platoon came to a stop.

"Welcome," Isabella said. "Glad you all made it."

"Oh, Isabella!" Linda said, rushing over to give her a hug. Isabella smiled and hugged her back. Linda had tried to be a mother to her, ever since she'd found out that Isabella had survived the attack on Santa Fe.

"That's Aunt Isabella?" Amanda said in her slight British accent, hopping out of the SUV. "She's even prettier in person."

Isabella laughed. "I'm not your aunt. Your aunt would be Uncle...Phineas's...wife..." She paused, as the realization of what that would mean hit her. Phineas, getting luggage from the back of the SUV, paused and smiled at her nervously.

"Close enough," Candace said. She came over to give Isabella a hug as well, saying quietly, "I know Phineas, and..." She backed off, smiling at Isabella. "He's committed. And it seems like you are too."

Isabella nodded. "I'm in for the long haul."

"Then Amanda? Come give Aunt Isabella a hug," Candace said.

The little girl ran over as Isabella knelt. Amanda threw her arms around Isabella's neck, and Isabella picked her up, swinging her around. "You're so big," Isabella said.

"I turn six in March."

* * *

Ferb's phone beeped, and he excused himself from the group chat around the Christmas tree in Phineas and Isabella's house to check it. Everyone had ended up there that night, spending Christmas Eve together. He and Phineas had been catching up with Candace on the sofa, with Linda sitting nearby getting to know Doc and Colin. Isabella and Amanda were busily coloring pictures on the kitchen table.

 **Just touched down** , the message said.

 **Sergeant Hathaway should be there presently. We're in unit #2 now.**

 **Hathaway just got here. See you in 5.**

He smiled at it. Phineas looked up at him. "Vanessa's on her way?"

"Just landed," he said.

"Nice. I haven't seen her in..." Phineas paused, thinking. "Since her father's funeral, I think."

"So are you two...an _item_?" Candace asked.

Ferb grinned enigmatically.

"That was my assumption, although I'm not sure what _kind_ of item," Phineas said.

"We're just good friends," Ferb said. "Who happen to be staying together over Christmas."

"Given that I've got your spare bedroom, one wonders where she's sleeping, then," Candace said with a smirk.

He was spared further discussion by a knock on the door. A quick check showed that it was indeed Vanessa, so he opened the door and was practically tackled by her. "Missed you," she whispered, kissing him gently.

"Missed you too," he murmured in response. "I take it you don't want to keep this quiet?"

"Not really," she said.

* * *

Isabella looked over. They'd had a large Christmas lunch, and now everyone was sitting around recovering. Doc had headed back to his place to take a nap. Colin had had to go out and deal with the security detail, with Captain Desjardins back home for three days. Ferb and Vanessa had gone off for a ride to see some of the sights - Isabella suspected it was just an excuse to get some time alone together, since there weren't really a lot of sights to see. Phineas was sitting on the couch watching Amanda play with her newest toys. And, Candace and Linda were sitting at the kitchen table talking.

It was time.

She walked into the kitchen, wishing once more that she had an implant to help calm her down. Taking a deep breath, she took a seat at the table.

"What's up?" Linda asked, turning to her. "You look upset about something. It isn't anything we did, was it? I know we sprung this visit on you folks at the last minute. It's just that we hadn't had a Christmas with everyone together since..."

"Since Jeremy died, and I went to visit Grampa Reg," Candace said.

"It's too bad he couldn't come along," Linda added with a sigh. "He's getting up there in years. Maybe once this research project is done, you folks can all come to England to see him. I'm sure he'd love to meet you."

"I..." Isabella paused, trying to find the words. "I need to tell you two something that might make you mad at me. I need to apologize."

"Oh, honey, I'm sure it'll be alright," Linda said. Candace looked at her, a bit confused, and a bit concerned.

"I told you I was in Ops during the war. I was lying," Isabella said. "I was actually...well, the full details aren't important, but they're part of why we're here. But, they used me as an assassin."

Candace's eyes narrowed in recognition, as if she realized where Isabella was going with this. Linda didn't seem to catch on, though, and covered her mouth in surprise. "Oh, my. I mean, I know there was a war, but..."

"In particular," Isabella continued, "they sent me on missions to take out leading researchers on the other sides. Please understand, I didn't have a choice. They drafted me, and put...things in me that could kill me on the spot if I disobeyed."

"How horrible!" Linda said. "That's not right. Did you ever figure out how to get them out?"

"Ferb figured out how to disable them, and told Phineas," she said, dodging the question a bit. "But...that's not the important part."

"What is?" Candace asked warily.

Over on the couch, Phineas noticed the conversation. He kissed Amanda on the top of her head, then came into the kitchen to join them.

"They sent me to take out Central's top researcher. The man in charge of Fletcher-Flynn Research. But Intelligence messed up. They told me the person to kill..."

"Was Dad," Candace said.

"What?" Linda asked.

"Yes. I'm sorry," Isabella said. "They told me to kill Lawrence Fletcher as owner of the company."

"How could you?" Candace asked, her eyes watering.

"She didn't have a choice," Phineas said. "They would have triggered the remote kill. She wouldn't have lasted a minute beyond saying 'no'."

"You're on her side now?" Candace asked, turning toward him.

"Wait, let me get this straight," Linda said. "You were the one who set the bomb?"

Isabella nodded numbly.

"I don't think I want to stay here right now," Candace said, standing up. "Amanda, pick up your things, we're going back to our place."

"Now, Candace," Linda started as Amanda, confused, put her new toys in the new backpack she'd gotten.

"Don't 'Now, Candace' me, Mom," Candace said, turning toward her. "He was your husband. Won't you stand up for him?"

"Always," Linda said. "When he needs it. He's gone now."

"So you just forget him? Like you forgot my other father?"

"Never. I have not and will not forget them."

"But you're going to side with his killer. Fine. I won't." Candace walked over and took Amanda's hand, pulling her outside.

Isabella winced, her eyes watering. "I'm sorry. I wanted...I hoped...I..."

Phineas squeezed her shoulder. "You didn't want to keep lying."

Isabella nodded dumbly.

Linda rooted through her purse, pulling out a tissue. "Here," she said, handing it to Isabella. "I...I can't say I'm not upset about it, but..." She turned to Phineas. "Did you know?"

"Not until the night we ran," he said. "That was why. Ferb found out too, and his reaction was...more like Candace's. He called in General Archer."

"Why did you run?" Linda asked.

"I can't go into details," Phineas said. "Security. But...there were other reasons he wanted Isabella. He would have used us as leverage on each other. And..." He looked at her, a fond smile on his face. "I wanted her to be free. She never really was. The orphanage to the military to a slave collar. Now..." He sighed. "Not quite there yet. Stuck on another military base."

"We're getting there," Isabella said.

Linda turned back to Isabella. "Did you really have no choice?"

"None," Phineas said. "Ferb showed me the footage. They would have made her girlfriend execute her."

Isabella nodded confirmation, wiping her eyes with the tissue. "Like I ended up having to do to her when she got caught."

Linda covered her mouth with her hand. "That's horrible."

"The man who gave the orders is dead," Phineas said.

Linda looked at the two of them for a long moment, tears in her eyes. "Thank you for telling me," she finally said. "Thank you for trusting me enough to give me the truth."

"I'm sorry about...everything, really," Isabella said.

"I know, dear," Linda said. "Really."

* * *

A light snow was falling as Phineas left the house to walk three doors down. He took a deep breath and knocked on the door of mobile home #3, rubbing his arms to warm himself up. _I should have grabbed my heavy jacket,_ he thought.

The door jerked open, and Candace glowered at him. "What?" she asked.

"Can we talk?"

She took a deep breath, her eyes narrowing, and exhaled slowly. "Fine. Come in," she said.

He walked in, and she closed the door behind him. Amanda was curled up on the couch watching the TV, and waved at him. He waved back.

"Is Aunt Isabella not going to be my aunt after all?" Amanda asked.

"That's what we're going to talk about," Phineas said.

"Okay," Amanda said, returning her attention to the TV.

He followed Candace to the kitchen table, so similar to the one that had hosted the earlier conversation.

"So...?" she asked as she sat.

"So. What...?" he trailed off, unsure what to say.

"How long did you know?"

"Less than a month now. I found out the night we left Danville."

"Why did you go with her?"

He shrugged and gave her a thin smile. "Look, if I'd known from the start, we would have captured her and used her as a research subject. I bought her because I wanted to protect just one would-be slave, but Dad's killer wasn't the one I wanted to protect."

"But you did."

"Yes. We spent time together. I got to know her. And by the time I found out, I had fallen in love with her."

"More than you loved Dad."

"That's not fair and you know it, Candace," Phineas said.

"She's a killer."

"How many medals did Jeremy have when he got captured? If his plan had worked, how many of the factory guards would have died?"

"That was different. That was fighting."

"So was this. She was fighting the war. On the other side. Sometimes that means killing people."

"Dad wasn't a target," Candace said.

"No. But Ferb and I were. And Southwest intelligence thought Dad was...well, us. So they told her to kill him."

"And if she hadn't?"

"She had...has, but it's disabled...a system in her body that would let them remotely kill her. Painfully."

"Ew." Candace wrinkled her nose in disgust. "Why?"

"There were reasons, but I can't go into detail. Her girlfriend - her lover - was watching her camera. If she hadn't gone through with it, her lover would have had to execute the remote kill."

"That's...ew."

"I agree."

Candace sighed, leaning her arms on the table, then rested her head in her hands. "I just...all the guys in my life are gone. Dad - our bio dad, Tim - had that heart attack. Jeremy got captured, and then executed. And then Dad - Lawrence - got blown up. And now Ferb's with Vanessa, and you're with...the woman who killed Lawrence. And..."

"I know. I am sorry. I told her I wasn't sure telling you was a good idea."

"I'm glad I know, but...I'm not sure I want to talk to her about it."

"That's fine. Are you willing to talk to her in general?"

Candace stared into his face for a moment, then smiled a bit. "You really do love her, don't you?"

"It's like...when you married Jeremy, you said that it was like half of you had been missing all your life, and then suddenly, there it was. Remember?"

Candace nodded.

"It's like that. I didn't know to miss her until she was there, and then it was like a hole had been filled."

Candace reached up to tousle his hair. "I suppose, if she's going to be my sister-in-law, I need to be on speaking terms with her."

"It would be appreciated. We're hoping to swing things so we can visit you next year, maybe the year after. Depends on the Americans more than anything else."

"Do I want to know why?"

"Nope."

* * *

"I'm sorry I make everything awkward," Isabella said to Ferb. He and Vanessa had returned just after Phineas had left to go talk to Candace, and now the three of them sat in the living room.

"It's the usual thing, after a war," Ferb said. "People who fought on different sides get to learn about what each other did, and it's a bit uncomfortable for everyone for a while."

"I know. It's a bit worse as an assassin, though."

"It's less than ideal as a researcher, too," Ferb said. "Sorry, I didn't mean to invent the bomb that blew up your house."

Vanessa, sitting next to him, laughed. "Of course you didn't."

Ferb grinned back. "Well, I did, but I didn't have _your_ house in mind at the time. Just...kind of a generic house. Or armored structure. Or tank."

Linda came in from the kitchen, carrying a mug of tea. "Well, it's certainly been an _eventful_ Christmas, wouldn't you say?"

The three of them laughed. "Sorry," Isabella said.

"Don't be. It's done," Linda said, sitting in the remaining chair. "I don't know that I've worked through this yet, but..." She smiled at Isabella. "You said it would have been your girlfriend who had to kill you if you'd refused?"

"Yes," Isabella said, confused.

"Tell me about her? Was this Sophie?"

"Yes, it was. Sophie Carter. She was..." She paused, looking for the words. "She was my first friend in the orphanage. She'd gotten there just the day before, another orphan of the Santa Fe attack. She was my best friend. We were as close as sisters. And then...we got drafted into the program together."

"What program is this? Was this?" Linda asked.

"Can't tell you, Mum. Sorry," Ferb said.

"That secret?"

"More than that, actually," Ferb said. "We shouldn't even be telling you this much."

"Wow. You boys are in pretty deep, huh?" Linda asked.

"Yes," Vanessa said.

"Okay. Keep going, Isabella," Linda said.

"We kept each other sane through all the training. And then...it was just after the team's first mission. We were celebrating. There was champagne. We got...pretty drunk. And she kissed me."

"And?"

"It was good. It was...more than either of us was willing to admit at first. It was just physical, we said. Neither of us really believed it. I don't know if we could have made it work normally, but we weren't living normal lives. It was training, or missions, or being mission control for other team members. We arranged it so we were each other's mission control most of the time."

"I'm surprised they let you do that," Ferb said.

"They figured we'd work harder to get each other home that way," Isabella said.

Linda hmfed disapprovingly. "What happened to her?"

"She got captured on a mission - finishing the one I messed up. She was sent to kill your sons, and I was her mission control." Tears came to Isabella's eyes unbidden.

"And?" Linda asked gently.

"It was a trap," Ferb said. "We captured her."

"I had to push the button. And then listen to her die. They gave me a promotion for it. Another fucking stripe when all I wanted was to hold her again and tell her everything would be alright."

"I'm sorry," Linda said, reaching across to clasp her hand.

Isabella offered her a faint smile. "I'm sorry too. I think I'm past it, and then..." She took a deep breath. "I do love Phineas, but..."

"I understand," Linda said. "Lawrence was my second husband. Candace and Phineas's biological father, Tim, died when Phineas was just a year old. Heart failure. I thought I'd never find a way to fill the hole that he left. And then I met Lawrence, and...it wasn't a hole that needed to be filled, it was a whole new part of me to explore. Who knows, maybe I'll find a third."

"I hope you do," Isabella said.

The door opened, and Phineas came in as a blast of cold air followed him. Just behind him, Candace looked in hesitantly.

"Get out of the way, Mum, I'm freezing," Amanda said from behind Candace.

"Come on in, folks," Ferb said.

"You're letting all the cold air in," Vanessa said. Ferb put his arm around her and held her more closely.

Candace came in, followed by Amanda, and Phineas closed the door.

"I'm sorry I flipped out..." Candace began.

"Don't be," Isabella said. "I'm sorry I kept it hidden for so long. I'm sorry I told you so poorly. I'm sorry about..."

"Can we talk?" Candace asked, nodding toward the kitchen.

"Sure," Isabella said. She took a seat at the kitchen table, where Candace joined her. "What's up?"

"I get that you didn't have much choice in what happened. And there was a war on, you were drafted, and all that."

Isabella nodded. "Thank..."

"Don't thank me yet," Candace interrupted her. "I get that they did something to you that lets you do more than most people. I'm not sure if it's just training or more than that. Phineas wouldn't say."

Isabella nodded again.

"Okay. I don't give a damn about that. I don't care if they turned you into Batman, Wonder Woman, or the Hulk. You have choices now. And if you hurt anyone in my family again, I will _end_ you. Do we have an understanding?"

"Yes," Isabella said. "And I will promise you this - you will never have to."

"I hope so, for both of our sakes."


	6. Research

Colin stopped the military SUV at the gate and showed his badge to the guard, who looked over at the passenger seat greedily. "Bringing donuts in today, eh?" the corporal on guard asked. "Any chance you can spare one or two?"

"Now, Corporal, you know you're not allowed to accept anything while on guard duty," Colin said disapprovingly.

"Right, sorry, Warrant Officer. Move along," the corporal said apologetically.

Shaking his head, Colin drove onto the military base, heading to the research lab that DRDC had provided them. They'd been working on pinning down how Isabella's implants did what they did for about two months now, and today some intense testing was planned.

"Hey, Phineas," he said as he entered the main meeting room for the lab. He set two boxes of donuts and one box of coffee on the table and added, "I brought Timmy's."

"Huh?" Phineas turned around and saw the donuts. "Oh, sweet. One box for Isabella and one box for the rest of us?"

"Pretty much."

"Good. She'll need them after today."

"I'll need what after today?" Isabella said, walking into the room in her workout gear. "Ooh! Thanks, Colin!" She bounced over to give him a hug. Over her shoulder, Colin saw Phineas bristle a bit. _She's not my type, there._

She let him go and opened a box of donuts, pulling out a maple one and biting into it. She mumbled appreciation as she turned to the coffee and poured herself a large cup. A sip of it, black, to wash down the donut, and she smiled at him. "Perfect. So what's the plan for today, Phineas?"

Phineas smiled at her hesitantly and said, "Ferb and I got the deep-motion scanner up and working, we think. So we want to get baseline readings for you running through the scanner field with your implants off, and then a few more times at different power levels. After that..." He looked embarrassed. "We need to see how they accelerate healing, as well as how they mute pain. But to do that..."

Isabella nodded. "I'm going to need to not mute it for a bit?"

"I'm sorry," he said.

She walked over and pressed herself against him. "You'll have to make it up to me tonight."

"Hey, where are Ferb and Doc?" Colin asked, looking around.

"Ferb's getting the sensor set up. Doctor Tjinder is looking over the simulation results from yesterday's sensor data," Phineas said, holding onto Isabella gently.

The door to the room they'd dubbed the 'gymnasium' opened, and Doctor Tjinder came out, holding a tablet. "I have the simulation results from last night," he began, and paused when he saw the donuts. "May I have one?"

"Of course," Colin said. "Help yourself to the coffee as well."

"Thank you." He kept talking as he began preparing his coffee. "I believe that we are getting close with the simulation results. Between the deep mapping of the implants and the scan results that we have, I suspect we will be ready to begin animal trials early next week. I will need to go back to Toronto to set that up."

"Next week?" Phineas said. "Wow. That's awesome, Doc."

"Yes. Yes, it is," Doctor Tjinder said.

* * *

Isabella put the mouth guard in, took a deep breath, and gave Phineas a thumbs up from her position on the hospital bed. He looked at her with a guilty expression and picked up his scalpel.

 _This is it. The moment I was dreading ever since I realized that the bunker was gone. I'd known I'd never have to worry about being dissected for research because if I was captured, mission control would activate the Liquidator. And then there was no more mission control._

She reached over to clasp Phineas's free hand. He squeezed briefly, then carefully set her hand back on the bed.

 _I trust Phineas. But..._ Her heart was pounding, she could feel it, and the scientists who'd built her implants hadn't thought to add an easy way to calm herself. Yet another item on the long list of things she'd never get a chance to make them answer for.

"Starting the cut," Phineas said into the voice recorder. "Time is 2:17pm and 30 seconds as of my mark...mark. Cut starting now."

It barely hurt at first as it went into her leg, because the scalpel was so sharp. And then the pain caught up with her, and she ground her teeth into the mouth guard. She wasn't used to this sort of pain any more - if this happened, she could always kick in her implants to mute the pain. But they were trying to see how the mute worked, so right now, she was lying in the sensor field while Phineas deliberately caused her pain.

"Cut is complete," Phineas said. "How are you doing?"

Isabella waggled a hand at him to indicate 'so-so'. The cut was really starting to hurt.

"Sorry. Give it another 30 seconds." He wiped up some blood from her leg. "Then you can mute it and I'll stitch up the wound. Okay?"

She gave him a thumbs up, and he reached over to squeeze her hand again.

"Okay. Time is 2:19pm and 0 seconds as of mark...mark. Activate the mute."

Isabella turned on the pain filter implant, and felt blessed relief as the pain turned into just a bit of an itch.

"Better?" he asked.

She spat out the mouth guard. "Better."

"Good. Let me stitch you up and put a bandage on this..."

She watched him stitch up the cut. It was about three inches long, but the implants kept it so that all she felt was a bit of pressure as the needle poked her skin. He put a bit of antiseptic ointment on it, followed by a non-stick pad, and fastened it down with medical tape.

"Preparing to activate the healing implants. Time is 2:23pm and 15 seconds as of mark...mark. Activate implants."

The implants turned on, and a slight crawly sensation under her skin told her it was working. All told, this was much better than when Dr. Vargas had tested it, back when the implants had first gone in. The brass had decided that there was no good way to test how the implants handled a bullet wound short of, well, providing a bullet wound.

"Vital signs look good," Phineas said. "Still doing okay?"

"Yeah," she said.

"Great. I'm going to go take a look at the readings. Stay here for a couple minutes so we can keep scanning the healing process." He kissed her gently on the forehead, then headed into the control room.

 _No dissection. But I'm still stuck here. I was hoping I wouldn't end up back in a cage, and although they're being nice to me here, it's still a cage, and I'm still a lab rat._

She sighed deeply.

"I don't know if I've seen someone overcome obvious terror this well before," Colin said softly from his seat off to one side.

"What obvious terror?" Isabella asked.

"Something about this scared the hell out of you. It was obvious. And you did it anyway."

She turned her head to where he sat. "Yeah, well, I've spent most of my life not having a lot of choice in the matter."

"You must have been one heck of a soldier," he said. "Even before the implants. I'd say you could give most of the guys in CSOR a run for their money."

"Thanks," she said.

* * *

Phineas returned to the lab, flipping through the chart that had been printed. They'd tracked the healing effects of the implants, and were starting to get an idea how those worked. Hopefully, they wouldn't have to do that again.

He came to the open door, and paused. Isabella was smiling - laughing, even. He wasn't expecting that, but it made him happier. _Maybe I wasn't as awful to her as I thought._

His heart sank again as he heard Colin's voice talking to her, laughing as well.

 _I should have been there comforting her. Instead of him._

His thoughts flashed back over the past few months. She spent a lot of time with Colin - as a soldier, he understood where she had come from better than Phineas ever could. They ran in the mornings, ate lunch together, and hung out together. She had dinner with Phineas, and spent the night with him, but...Phineas found himself wondering how long that would last.

Putting on his smile again, Phineas went in to talk to them about the results.

* * *

"General Archer?" the soldier said. "Tango One is in Toronto."

"Is he?" the general said, smiling. "Is it just him, or are any of the Romeo or Uniform phones there as well?" A bit of people-watching in the Suffield exchange had found that Romeo Two was Garcia-Shapiro and Romeo Three was Flynn; Uniform One and Two were known to be the commander and second-in-command of a Special Operations Regiment team that was protecting them. Fletcher had picked up a different security detail when in Toronto, which he seemed to be visiting every couple of weeks.

"Romeo One, Two, and Three all read as being at Suffield."

Archer thought for a moment. "Tell capture team to stand by in case any of the others join him, but Tjinder alone is not sufficient. But if any Romeo units are with him, then take them all."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Holly sat in the park - a different one than every other time she'd done this. She tried to make sure she didn't repeat herself, and didn't ever use the prepaid phone except well away from her apartment. OpSec - operational security - wasn't her strong point, but she didn't want a stupid mistake to cause them to catch her.

She hadn't had much useful information to send recently, but the mayor had finally purchased another slave girl, and Holly couldn't bear to watch how he was mistreating the young woman. He was far too pleased with himself about it. The slave, a young woman of Egyptian descent named Sara, had previously been owned by the same studio that had used Ginger for gang-rape propaganda films, and the mayor had long been a fan of her. When her films' popularity had declined, the mayor had offered to buy her. She had been pleased with her new situation when she'd first gotten to Danville, but had soon realized that it wasn't much of an improvement.

Holly typed in an email to the address she'd been given.

 **What info do you need to escort the mayor's latest acquisition away?**

A moment later, a reply came back.

 **His schedule would be the most useful info.**

She had guessed as much, and inserted the memory card she'd copied it to into the phone.

 **Attached.**

The reply took a minute or so longer this time.

 **Thank you. We can't warn you when things will happen, but keep your eyes open.**

With a satisfied smile, Holly turned the phone off and started to walk back home.

* * *

 _He does it to everyone,_ Vanessa had told him. _It's just the way he shows how important he is._ Ferb sighed and looked at Director Blanchard's secretary, who blithely typed away on her computer as if he weren't there. The director was ten minutes late for their meeting again, but at least Ferb knew what to expect this time, and had brought his tablet.

Unfortunately, it didn't help much. He couldn't concentrate on his book while he was waiting for the director to call him in. So, he sat and stared at the page unseeing while the director made him wait.

"Mr. Fletcher?" the secretary said.

"Yes?" Ferb said, looking up.

"He's ready for you now," she said.

Ferb nodded to her and walked through the door into Director Blanchard's office. The director stood to reach across and shake his hand, as usual. "Fletcher, good to see you. You said you had progress to report, what's up? This had better not be just an excuse to come out here for Valentine's Day tomorrow. I know you've been spending a lot of time with the lovely Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"Not at all. I have a working tumbler shield," Ferb said.

The director sat back in his chair, his eyebrows going up. "Really? What scale have you tested at?"

"Shoebox size device, shield was about a meter square," Ferb said. "But it should scale up cleanly. I have video."

"Show me," the director said.

Ferb switched his tablet to the video app, and set it on the desk. "Here's a standard tumbler projectile going through a brick wall," Ferb said, and the video showed a side view of a brick wall. One one side, a table held a small box. On the screen, Ferb picked it up and flipped a switch on the side, causing it to make a humming sound. He weighed the box in his hand, and as it moved, the field warbled in the characteristic sounds of a tumbler field compensating for motion. Finally, after a moment, he tossed it at the wall. The warbling intensified, and then as the box was about to hit the wall, it vanished, only to reappear on the far side of the wall with the warbling sound gone.

"Okay, yeah, standard tumbler. So, let's see with the shield in place."

Ferb switched to another video. "This one has a tumbler shield a foot in front of the brick wall." Again, the side view of the wall, and a small box on the table. Ferb picked up a corded switch from the floor and flipped it, and a slight silent shimmer appeared in the air in front of the wall. He turned on the box, which hummed again, and then tossed it toward the wall. It warbled as it went, until it hit the shimmer, at which point it abruptly vanished.

"Does it reappear?" the director asked with a smile on his face.

"No. The field is disrupted and it drops into its first dimension permanently."

"Very nice. How quickly can you scale it up to protect a building? How about a city? Or the entire border?"

"A building, maybe a week. A city...actually, I suspect a week will get that as well. The entire border will be trickier. How high?"

"Cruise missile height, not ballistic missile height."

"Okay. We can probably start it up within a month or two. The hard part will be keeping the Americans from knowing what's going on."

"I don't know that we can protect the whole border yet, but I'm trying to figure out the scale." The director smiled slyly. "The tumbler bomb really isn't that great, you know."

"I'm aware. The psychological effect is greater than the actual damage. We got a lucky hit on Cheyenne Mountain, and suddenly everyone was terrified of our superbomb. But we need to protect more rather than less, because one tumbler bomb hits a major city and the population will have kittens, even if it doesn't kill anyone."

"Excellent. Get me cost estimates to protect, say, the 10 largest Canadian cities within 100 miles of the border. Does the field need to be on all the time?"

"I don't think so. Tumbler bombs make noise due to the tumbling, so I think we can detect them coming and activate the shield as needed. It doesn't affect anything that isn't using a quantum tumbler, though, so if we do need to leave it on it isn't a problem."

"Okay." The director steepled his fingers, giving Ferb a smile. "Good job, Fletcher. Go have a nice dinner with Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"I intend to, sir."

* * *

 _At least now they're testing on actual animals now,_ Isabella thought as she came back from lunch with Colin, each of them carrying a sandwich for the researchers. Phineas and Doc had been heads-down all day working with the first test subjects, a pair of rabbits named Bugs and Roger that had been given muscle implants. Because there was no way to train the rabbits to switch them on or off, they'd been forced to leave the implants on all the time. As she'd left for lunch, they'd been trying to figure out how to keep Roger still long enough to replace the sensors that had fallen off on his third hop, which had been at least five feet off the ground.

She opened the lab building's back door, and paused as Phineas shouted, "NO!" A grey-and-white blur leapt over her, shooting out into the snow-covered prairie. She recognized it as Bugs, as Roger was pure white.

"Catch it!" Doc said, panting as he ran toward the door.

Isabella tossed her sandwich to Colin as her implants came up to full speed. She turned and saw the rabbit hopping away as quickly as it could. It was at least as fast as she was, so catching it was going to be tricky, but she took off at a run anyway. She could feel herself warming up as she ran, so she unzipped her jacket and dropped it, and was glad that she had taken to wearing jeans and sneakers around the base most of the time, instead of the dresses and heels she'd worn while working for Phineas.

The rabbit was getting further and further away from her, and she cursed under her breath. _Why the fuck did those idiots upgrade a rabbit? Upgrade something slow. Something that can't get away so easily. Fuckheads._ Her only hope was to wear it down - hopefully that wouldn't take long, since its lungs hadn't been enhanced to improve oxygen intake yet.

A revving engine came up behind her, passing well to her right; she saw it was one of the military SUVs, being driven by Colin, with Phineas in the passenger seat. The rabbit angled away from the SUV, and she shouted, "Cut it off!"

The SUV picked up speed, bouncing across the thin layer of snow as it swung wide around the rabbit and then crossed its path. The rabbit tried to turn and instead started sliding, feet paddling frantically for purchase.

"Gotcha!" Isabella shouted as she dove for it, but just before it came into her grasp, the rabbit caught traction and leapt away. She hit the snow and slid, face first, picking up a mouthful of dirty snow and soaking herself before she came to a stop. Glaring at the SUV, which was starting to move again, she turned and saw the rabbit moving more slowly away from them, looking for cover.

She ran after it again, and it picked up its pace as it ran at an angle away from both her and the SUV. It ran through some low bushes that she had to circle, gaining more of a lead. The SUV came racing up alongside, and the rabbit angled away from it, back toward the lab buildings. Doctor Tjinder came out of the lab with a large butterfly net, trotting out towards them. Isabella angled over so that she and the SUV were both behind the rabbit, driving it back toward the building.

"Ha!" Doc shouted, swinging the net, but the rabbit was too fast. It leapt aside, running along the side of the building until it came to a large black sedan, which it hid underneath. Isabella knelt to see it under there, panting with exertion, but it was too far under to reach. _I understand how you feel, rabbit, but we can't let you get away. Better you than me._

The SUV came to a stop nearby, and Colin and Phineas clambered out. "Now what?" Colin asked, a smirk on his face. Isabella gave him her best _don't you even start_ glare, which just made him smirk more.

"Can you lift the car?" Doc asked.

Isabella shook her head. "The implants make me strong, but not _that_ strong. Think Captain America, not Hulk."

"Can we block it in and force it out just one path?" Phineas asked.

"That makes sense. Anyone know whose car this is?" Colin said. Everybody shook their heads negatively.

"Hope it isn't anyone important." Phineas said. "Colin, how about you and Doc go back and grab a couple rolls of plastic sheeting?" Colin nodded and trotted back to the lab.

"What's the plan?" Isabella asked, her breath calming as the world returned to normal speed. She rubbed her arms; she was a bit chilly now, melting snow and sweat cooling her down uncomfortably as her wet clothing stuck to her in awkward places.

"We wrap the car in plastic down to the ground so the rabbit can't get out, then cut a hole somewhere we can wait. Then we startle it, so it runs out the hole, and we catch it." He paused. "Are you cold? Your jacket's in the truck. We picked it up on the way past. Colin's idea."

"Yes, please." She walked over to the SUV and retrieved her jacket, returning to the sedan just as Colin and Doc arrived with two large rolls of thick plastic.

"Okay, let's wrap the car first," Phineas said. "Isabella, you wait by the front in case it gets spooked too early."

Isabella knelt down in front of the car, looking at the rabbit underneath. It was sniffing around cautiously, but didn't look ready to run.

Phineas put a roll on one side of the car, and with Doc holding one end in place, started unrolling a sheet of plastic around it. The rabbit looked around suspiciously, but didn't start to run.

The plastic reached all around the car, hiding the rabbit from view, and Phineas started on a second layer, and then a third. "Okay, I think he's stuck in there for now. So, where do we set the trap?"

"How about right here?" Isabella asked. "We can cut the hole and I can catch him as he comes out."

"Are you sure?" Doc asked suspiciously.

"His legs are fast, but he won't be able to get a good run going until he's all the way out. I'll get him."

Phineas smiled at her. "Sounds good. So, we cut a hole here," he gestured with his multitool, "and then all go to the other end and scream."

He knelt down at the front of the car, cutting holes in the plastic sheets. He looked in through the hole, and said, "He's still in there. You ready, Isabella?"

"Ready," she said.

"Okay." He took Colin and Doc behind the car, where, on the count of three, they all shouted.

Nothing happened. Isabella peeked in the hole, and found Bugs curled in upon itself, trying to hide. "He's not moving," she said.

"Damn," Phineas said. "Okay. Any other bright ideas?"

"It thinks that it is safe underneath there," Doc said.

"Well, it is," Colin said.

"Then we need to convince it that it is not," Doc said. "What do we have handy?"

"There's a first-aid kit and a safety kit in the truck," Colin said.

"Flares?" Phineas asked. "Could we smoke it out?"

"That might work," Doc said, nodding.

"I dunno if it's such a good idea..." Colin said.

"It'll be fine," Phineas said. "I'll go grab one." He trotted over to the SUV, opening the back. After rooting around for a moment, he came out with a road flare. "Here we go." He lit the flare, then lifted the plastic just enough to slide it under the car. Smoke seeped out of the edges of the plastic.

"Whole car's going to smell like smoke after this," Colin said, standing back, as if distance would separate him from responsibility.

A grey-and-white blur shot out from the hole, and Isabella snatched it up as it passed by. She lifted Bugs up triumphantly, holding his pedaling feet away from her. "Got him!"

"Awesome!" Phineas said. "Good job, everyone!"

"What the hell are you doing to my car?" Doctor Jacobi shouted from the door of the lab.

"I'll just go take our fugitive rabbit back while you straighten this out," Isabella said. "And then, I need a warm shower."

* * *

"Sit," Lieutenant Colonel Scott, the base commander, said, glaring at Phineas. Phineas sat in the offered seat.

The commander flipped through a folder on his desk, his eyes icy. Phineas took the moment to glance around the room. It was sparsely decorated, with an overstuffed bookshelf on one wall and file folders covering most of the rest.

He looked at the commander, who was still looking through the folder. He was tall and stocky, with thinning black hair that was starting to turn grey. He looked up at Phineas, glaring, then looked back at the folder. Finally, he sighed and sat back.

"What the fuck, Flynn?" he asked.

"Sorry. An animal research subject got loose and we were trying to get it out from under the car."

"So you wrapped the car in plastic and lit a flare under it? Do you realize how lucky you are the car didn't go up?"

"Well, we stayed away from the gas tank, so unless there was a vapor leak that..." He saw the general's glare at him, and stopped.

"Did you consider, say, poking it with a stick to get it to move?"

"That..." Phineas paused for a moment. "That may have been a better idea, yes."

"Look, I don't ask much of you. You're working on stuff that I'm not even cleared to know about. All I ask is that you not make waves. Jacobi was already pissed about losing half his lab space to your brother, and now this."

"I'll cover the cleaning bill personally," Phineas said.

"A good start," the general said.

"Write an apology to Doctor Jacobi?"

"Please."

"I wish to make it clear that Warrant Officer Park had no part in this, and tried to tell us not to. It's not his fault."

"Understood," the general said. "Now, to make something else clear: you may not be under my chain of command, but this is _my_ base and you play by _my_ rules. Capisce?"

"Yes, General."

"I'm glad we had this talk. Let's never have one like it again."

* * *

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Colin asked, stepping into Captain Desjardins's temporary office.

"Sit, Park," the captain said, flipping through some paperwork. Colin sat, stretching out and waiting. He was expecting to get the riot act read to him for yesterday's clusterfuck with the rabbit.

The captain sighed, then looked up at him. "You did well yesterday with the rabbit, all things considered."

"Thank you, sir." _Huh?_

"Jacobi's pissed, but not at you. Flynn's being briefed on proper procedures."

"Will he listen?"

The captain blew out a half-laugh, shaking his head. "One would not expect it. That's not why I called you in today, though."

"Sir?"

The captain picked up a folder and sat back. "We're at a point where we need to select the first candidate for Obelisk upgrades. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Do we have selection criteria?"

"We've seen everyone sparring with Ms. Garcia-Shapiro, so - how quickly they adapt. Loyalty. Ability to get along with the researchers. Willingness to volunteer for a treatment that may be fatal or crippling if it doesn't work as well as we hope."

Colin paused, trying to decide if he wanted to say the words that were forming in the back of his head.

 _Hell with it._ "I volunteer, sir."

The captain grinned. "Well, that makes life simpler."

* * *

Isabella walked up behind where Phineas sat. He'd left the room shortly after Colin had informed him that he'd volunteered to be the first Canadian to get Obelisk upgrades, and Isabella hadn't been able to follow for a few minutes. She'd found him, eventually, sitting in the break room of the lab.

"What's up?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing," he said, not moving.

She sat down next to him. His eyes were red-rimmed, and he avoided looking at her.

"I don't believe you," she said. "Really, what's wrong?"

He paused and took a deep breath. "You and Colin are so close..."

"He's a really good friend," Isabella said warily.

"If you want to make it more than that...I just want you to be happy. If you'd be happier with him...I get it, he's..."

She tried to stifle a laugh, and failed. "Seriously?"

He looked up at her. "I can tell. You two are so close. You do so much together, and..." He swallowed. "And now he's going to have implants like yours. He'll be the only other person who can really understand you."

She took his hand. "Yes. We're good friends. But that's it."

"I understand if you want to make it more than that."

"I don't, for two reasons," Isabella said.

"Oh?" Phineas said, with more enthusiasm than he'd had for a while.

"First, I am madly in love with you, and have no desire to trade you in for anyone, whether they have implants or not."

"Oh," Phineas said, a smile crossing his face.

"And second, I guess you didn't realize - you aren't his type, but Colin's more likely to be interested in you than me. He's gay."

Phineas blinked. "What?"

"You didn't know?"

"I guess not."

She leaned over to give him a kiss. "Feeling better?"

"Much."

* * *

"Okay. Full disclosure time, Colin," Phineas said, feeling much better after talking with Isabella earlier. "We think we have a working solution. The nanobot implantation wrappers have worked really well in the animal tests. But we need to make sure you know what you're getting into."

"Okay, shoot," Colin said, sitting back.

"First off," Doc said, "there is no guarantee that this will work. If it does not, it may weaken or cripple you."

"It may even be fatal," Phineas said.

"We lost two of the Dewdrop team to early test implants," Isabella said. "Although one of those was a failure of the security system, and the Liquidator tripped."

"Yeah, we aren't including any of that. First up is the leg-muscle implants. That way, if something goes wrong, you can still have a reasonable life."

"In a wheelchair," Doc added.

"How likely do you think that is?" Colin asked.

"I don't think it's likely at all," Phineas said. "I'm pretty sure we've got it down. But I can't say it's a zero percent chance."

Phineas watched as Colin pondered for a moment. Finally, he sat up, nodding. "I'm in."

* * *

Holly woke to her cell phone ringing, a number she didn't recognize. The clock on it read 2:17 am. She considered leaving it, but decided it just might be work-related, so she had better answer it.

"H'lo?" she mumbled into the phone.

The woman on the other end of the line said, "Ms. Washington? This is Sergeant Stevens of the Danville Police Department. There's been an incident involving the Mayor, and he's asking for you to meet him here at Danville Medical Center."

"An incident? Is he alright?" Holly asked, suddenly more awake. She sat up, the blanket falling away from her.

"He's shaken but uninjured. Come find me here, I'd prefer not to give more details over the phone."

"I understand. I'll be there in ten minutes."

"See you then."

Holly hung up the phone and threw on some clothes, grabbing her car keys as she rushed out the door.

 _Last time I got a call like this was when they liberated Mitsuko, his last slave,_ she thought as she drove to the hospital. _I wonder..._

 _I hope they don't know that I leaked his schedule._

She pulled up to the hospital, found a parking place, and trotted in through the emergency room doors. The woman at the desk looked up at her. "Yes?"

"I'm the mayor's assistant, I was told he was here?"

"Ah, yes. Just a second." The woman picked up her phone and punched a few keys. "The mayor's assistant is here." She paused, listening. "Okay. Thanks, Martha." She hung up and looked at Holly. "He's in room 317. Through those doors, up the elevator to 3, and the nurse there will give you directions."

Holly thanked her and went up to the third floor, where Sergeant Stevens was waiting by the elevator. "Ms. Washington?" she asked.

"Yes. How is he? What happened?"

The sergeant looked around, then said, "Follow me."

Holly followed the sergeant to the room next to the mayor's, which was empty. "You are aware that the mayor has been attacked before over his slavery convictions," the sergeant stated.

"Yes. I assume that's what happened again?"

"Yes. He was leaving a party with his slave - Sara?"

Holly nodded confirmation.

"Okay. They were leaving a party, and were attacked. The attackers have military connections of some sort, they were using an experimental new knockout weapon. He was hit, and when he woke up..." Sergeant Stevens took a deep breath and seemed to be fighting to hide a grin. "Here, I'd better show you." She pulled out a phone, poked at the screen for a moment, and showed Holly a picture. The mayor was being lifted out of a large garbage bin. He had been chained up and painted a bright shade of pink all over his naked body. Holly suppressed her laughter, and the two of them looked away from each other briefly until they composed themselves.

"What happened to Sara?"

"Missing. Her collar isn't responding to location requests. It's believed to have been disabled."

"So, probably halfway to Canada or Mexico by now."

The sergeant's smile flickered again. "Likely, yes."

 _Good. Hopefully you make it, Sara._

* * *

Colin pushed himself along the corridor in the wheelchair he'd been given. The nanoinjections had been done that morning, and his legs were rebuilding themselves; unfortunately, that meant that, for the moment, he couldn't walk.

Isabella strolled along next to him. She'd offered to push, but he'd said he needed to do this for himself, at least for a little bit.

"How long does this part last?" he asked again. He was sure he'd asked this one several times before.

She laughed softly. "A couple days." She paused. "You think this is annoying, wait until they do the arms. And the lungs have to be done in stages so you don't suffocate."

"Oh, God. How did you survive?"

"Well, we got them over a longer period. It took a year or so between the first ones and the last." She paused, and said, "It's not like I get away with this entirely either. Phineas offered to replace my current implants with ones that can't kill me."

"Wait, you mean the kill switch is still there?"

"Not really. Phineas cut the wire to the antenna. But theoretically, if somebody got close enough with a powerful enough transmitter, it'd work."

"Oh. How...doesn't it bother you?"

She shrugged. "I've been living with the knowledge that somebody could push a button and choke me to death for, like, five years now. The past couple months is the first time it's had to be somebody close enough that I could punch them before I go."

Colin laughed. "Point."

She paused. "I will say, the point where the security nodes get removed...it's kind of terrifying, to be honest."

"Because if he got it wrong..."

"If it's wrong, I die."

* * *

"Okay, try to stand," Phineas said. Doc stood back, watching his displays, as Isabella waited behind the wheelchair to catch him if needed.

Colin gripped the arms, and pushed himself up. His legs felt odd, kind of numb, but seemed to be responding normally.

He stood, equilibrium returning quickly. He tried lifting his left leg, balancing on his right foot, then put both feet down and tried to jump a bit. His left leg gave out as he landed, and suddenly Isabella was catching him by the armpits, holding him up.

"You don't look like you should be able to lift me, you know," he said as he reached back and steadied himself.

"Yep," she said, letting go as he braced himself. "You want to arm wrestle again?"

"Nope," he said. "Learned that lesson once. Losing's not my thing." He let go of the wheelchair again. His legs felt steadier this time, as he learned how they reacted. "I'll be up for a rematch after they do my arms, though."

"Hah," she said. "Of course."

He tried to balance on his left leg this time, and it held. "Okay, I think I'm getting the hang of this." He squatted down, then jumped up, landing back on his feet. "So how do I turn these things on?"

Doc looked embarrassed, and Phineas shrugged. "It's...complicated," he said.

"If it's complicated, how can she turn them off and on so quickly?" Colin asked.

"Practice," Isabella said. "For now...hm. Let me try to put it into words." She pondered for a moment as Colin practiced walking around the room. "Okay. Try this. Can you feel your tailbone?"

"...No?"

"Um. Okay. Can you squeeze like you're trying to pee, and you want to stop it suddenly?"

Colin thought about it for a moment, and clenched a bit. "Okay, that I can find."

"Here, let me see," she said, stepping forward. She pressed on his back, following it down just below the waistband of his shorts. "Here. Can you feel this?"

"Well, yeah. That's weird. It's like there's a little knot there."

"Right. Try to clench right there."

"Right there? But..." Suddenly, he felt his legs bursting with energy. "Whoa."

"Careful," she said, pulling her hand back. "Take small steps to start with."

He took a step forward, and accidentally leapt a couple feet. He tried to catch himself, but his leg swung forward faster than expected, sliding out from underneath himself. He was falling, his legs flailing, and again he felt Isabella catch him under the armpits, holding him up.

"Steady. Get your legs under you," she said.

"Excellent," Doc said, looking at his screens. "We are getting very good readings from this."

"Thanks," Colin said dryly. "Glad to be of service." He slowly moved his legs, standing up on them again. "How did you do at this stage?"

"I fell on my ass, actually," Isabella said. "You will too. One of the fundamental things about how you walk and move just changed, and it'll take time to figure it out."

"Can you try turning them off again?" Phineas asked.

Colin focused on his lower back again. He tried to squeeze it again, but it was already tight. "It's tight already."

"Try to release it," Isabella said.

He thought about the knot there, and letting it loose. He felt the energy drain out of his legs, and he could again stand on them normally. He tried taking a step forward, and it worked as expected.

"I see lots of practice in your future," Phineas said.

"No kidding," Colin said. His stomach growled. "Hey, when's lunch? I am _starving_."

Isabella laughed. "Welcome to my life."


	7. Intersections

"I swear, Holly, it's like somebody doesn't want me to own a slave," the mayor said, taking a seat at his desk. It was his first day back in the office after the attack, and confirmation had come in earlier that morning that Sara had made it into Canada.

"Well, there are folks who don't want anyone to own one," she said as diplomatically as she could.

He harrumphed. "Damn abolitionists. We worked damn hard for the right to own people again."

Holly decided she was better off not commenting on this.

"At least it isn't just folks who look like you now."

 _That's not much of an improvement, you asshole,_ she thought.

"Ah, well. What'd I miss?"

"The local branch of the ACLU is formally renewing their request that, now that the war is over, all prior restraint on the media be lifted."

"There's still too much unrest for that. Too many people in the rebel states who think that just because they're part of the US again, they get some say in how things are run here."

Holly nodded; she hadn't expected any other response. "Shatter Day is coming up in about three weeks. 19th anniversary of the attacks. It's on a Saturday this year, so Friday is the day off for most people. The Memorial Society has a candlelight vigil planned for Saturday morning, and then a Unity Parade, which you'll be riding in as usual. The parade ends at the memorial in the park, and you'll give a speech. The Fireside Girls and Wilderness Explorers are running a cookout in the park afterwards, proceeds going to the Memorial Society."

"The usual, then. Make sure I'm not scheduled for anything after 2pm."

Holly made a note in her book. "Same as last year, then?"

"Right, you were here last year. Yes."

"May I ask why? I mean, I know you were involved with the rescue efforts after the bombing here..."

The mayor looked up at her, a sad look on his face. "There's a bit more to it than that. I...sorry. It's a hard time for me. Alex and I always get together for it, and drink to those who didn't survive. He'll be coming in that morning."

Holly smiled at him, more sympathetically than she had for some time. She was reminded that he had been in the military when the attacks had happened, and had been heavily involved in the rescue work after the attack on Danville. "I understand, sir. We've all lost people that mattered to us. I'll make sure you're clear after the cookout. Do you want me to arrange for the general to ride in the parade with you? He was involved in the rescue work as well, as I recall."

"He was, but it's not necessary. Thank you, though." He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I'll let you get back to work."

* * *

"Why the lung implants next?" Isabella asked. "I figured you'd go for the ears."

Colin, sitting next to her, nodded. They'd put implants in his legs and arms, and then used the knowledge to upgrade Isabella's as well. The nanobots had disassembled her existing implants as raw material for their replacements. She had adjusted to the upgrades quickly, which she had been amused at while Colin had been a bit frustrated. He was, finally, getting the hang of operating with the implants running, though.

"Mostly for Colin," Phineas said. "The limiting factor in his implants right now is oxygen, so the lung implants will give him the necessary boosts."

"And then me?" Isabella asked.

"Yes. That's the other reason. The sooner we get your lung implants replaced, the sooner we can take the Liquidator offline for good."

"Oh." She smiled at the thought. "Okay."

"We have some significant upgrades planned as well," Doc added. "I believe that we can have a short-duration carbon scrubber in place. You would have two or three minutes of recycling the carbon dioxide in your system into oxygen before you would need to breathe."

"Wow. That would be handy," Colin said.

Isabella thought back. If she'd had a couple extra minutes, maybe Sophie could have found a way out... "That's really nice, yeah," she said.

"Okay. We should be ready to do about half of one lung tomorrow, as a test. Sound good, Colin?" Phineas asked.

"Sounds good, yes. Let's do this."

* * *

Colin breathed in carefully through the oxygen mask on his face. The lung implant had gone awry, and left him with one lung that was currently non-functional. He sat up in the bed they'd set up for him in the lab area, mindless TV on the screen in front of him, but he wasn't paying attention.

 _So, maybe this is it. You knew this was a risk when you volunteered. Your lung is toast, and the best you have to look forward to is a medical discharge._

The door to the lab swung open, and Doc came in. "We have figured out what went wrong."

Colin coughed. "And?"

"The nanobots were targeting the wrong areas before fully developing, so they did not get interconnected with the blood vessels appropriately."

"Meaning?"

"It is fixable. Mr. Flynn is working on reprogrammed nanobots right now."

Colin smiled. "Sounds good. They'll replace the current ones?"

"Yes, it is the same sort of system that we use to replace Ms. Garcia-Shapiro's implants." He paused, and said hesitantly, "I am sorry about this."

Colin raised an eyebrow. "I'm flattered, Doc, never heard you say anything like that before."

"Yes, well, apologies are not my strong point because I so rarely need to provide them."

Colin laughed, but it quickly turned into another cough.

* * *

"Is Ginger coming?" Katie asked, coming into the room after putting Dave down for the night. She handed glasses of wine to Adyson and Holly, keeping one for herself.

Holly looked at Adyson, who shrugged as if to say, "This one's your problem."

"She's gone. Left for Uruguay yesterday. Buford's going with her, he quit at the mess hall the day before."

Katie sat down, looking at Holly with confusion on her face. "I'm sorry, the hearing aids must have messed up. Did you say Uruguay?"

Holly nodded. "Her sister's there. She's a leader of the anti-America political bloc there, largely because of what happened to Ginger. And with the Supreme Court decision coming up in a few weeks..."

Adyson brightened in understanding. "Oh! That makes sense."

Katie cocked her head to the side. "What Supreme Court decision? Sorry, I spend most of my day around toddlers, and they don't talk politics much."

Holly took a sip of her wine. She was going to need it for this; the mayor had been practically salivating in anticipation of a favorable decision.

"Okay," Holly said. "A few of the companies that were in Dixie and Columbia have sued about the liberation of slaves who had been Central POWs after the surrender."

"Why?" Katie asked. "It was obvious at that point, the POWs had been convicted of treason but clearly they hadn't been treasonous since they were fighting for the side that won."

"Right, but there was never a formal pardon for them, or anything like that," Holly said. "The companies are suing that they lost their property improperly - it's a Fifth Amendment case. Deprived of property without due process of law."

Adyson shook her head in disgust. "General opinion was that it was a stupid suit, but it made it to the Supreme Court. And, well...would you trust _your_ freedom to them?"

"Not if I could help it, no," Katie said. "So what was the decision?"

"Hasn't come down yet, but given how the justices argued it, worst case is a 7-2 decision that they get their slaves back." Holly drank some more wine. "Or that the companies get compensated, but you know the government would rather put collars on people than pay money."

"The same seven justices who decided that slavery wasn't an Eighth Amendment violation, of course," Adyson added.

"Of course," Holly said. "Of course, if the President just pardoned all the POWs, it'd all be over, but..."

"But of course he hasn't, because President Sherman never saw a neck he didn't want a collar on," Katie said.

"Exactly. So, Ginger decided she was not going back to the movie company ever, and left the country while she still could."

"Good for her," Katie said.

* * *

"Okay. I think we're set. Are you ready?" Phineas asked, looking at her nervously.

"You're sure the old implants are completely replaced?" Isabella said.

"As far as I can tell, the only bits of your old implants still left in there are the security nodes."

"I agree," Doc said. "I do not detect any pieces of the older implants either."

Isabella took a deep breath. They'd used Colin as a test subject, then gone on and used her as a second test, upgrading and replacing her old implants. The new ones were more effective, used less energy, and - most importantly, from her perspective - did not have any self-destruct mechanism in them. But the idea of removing the security nodes, which were the only things that kept the old implants from melting and suffocating her on their residue, was mildly terrifying.

"We can leave the security nodes in place if you want," Phineas said.

"No, I want them gone, but..." A thought occurred to her. "Can we put something in that will let me know if anyone tries to use them? Just in case?"

Phineas thought for a moment. "Sure, I think we can do that. Doc?"

"I agree, it is possible, although I am not certain why you would want it."

Isabella grinned. "Because if anyone tries to use them on me, I want to know so that I can make them pay for it."

* * *

Holly cursed herself as she badged into City Hall. The day had been a clusterfuck from the beginning, and she hadn't helped matters. The parade had been marred by not one but two protests: anti-slavery protestors had blocked the Mayor's car, chanting about freedom until they were dragged out of the way, and free-speech protestors had tried to shout over the Mayor's speech at the memorial in Danville Park.

She'd realized at the last minute that she'd forgotten the Citizenship Award certificates in her desk, and they were being given out that evening at the Memorial Dinner. The Mayor wouldn't be giving them out, due to his private commitment, so the head of the Danville Chamber of Commerce would be presenting them.

Approaching the Mayor's office, she pulled out her phone to let them know she'd be there a bit late, and to leave herself a voice memo, reminding herself to check into any charges against the protestors. Hopefully, she could convince the Mayor to be lenient with them in an attempt to heal the nation's wounds after the war. She reached her desk, noticing that the door to the Mayor's office was ajar and there were voices inside. Puzzled, she stopped to listen for a minute before she recognized the voices as Mayor Abercrombie and General Archer. _I figured they'd be hanging out in the Mayor's house. Guess not._

"You'll love this one, Dutch," General Archer said, his words slurring slightly. "Guess who's at Sanford West with me?"

"Not a clue," the mayor said, a bit more drunkenly.

"Erik Fucking Bailey, the backstabber."

The mayor laughed. "The Hero of Santa Fe himself! Pity we can't tell anyone he set the fucking bomb in the first place."

Holly froze. She'd vaguely recognized the name; he was a political leader in the Southwest. _He set the bomb? And they know about it?_ She tapped the voice recorder button on her phone, and it started recording.

"Yeah, well, we can't risk him pointing out that - just as an example - you and I set the Danville bomb," the general said. "Everyone still thinks it was the fucking Liberators."

Holly stood, frozen, not believing what she was hearing, watching the virtual VU meter on her phone twitch back and forth as it recorded every word. Nathan Hale's Liberators was the group that had set off the bombs, including the nuclear blasts in Washington DC that had decapitated the government and caused the country to fracture. Each regional group had claimed the other groups were fronts for the Liberators, which had led to troops being used in attempts to force the other regions to reunite by force. Within months, the smaller groups had coalesced into four large factions, and by that point, each side was using atrocities committed by the others in their arguments that they were the one true successor of the American government.

There was a long pause. "Yeah, I know," the mayor said. "Today's the one day I wonder if it was all worth it. You remember that little girl we found at the end?"

"Jesus, Dutch. How could I forget her? Here we'd blown up half of downtown Danville, and we're the heroes rescuing the survivors...and then that last one."

"Sometimes I can still hear her crying in my sleep, Alex. Even if she'd lived, she never would have walked again. Not even Dewdrop could have helped that."

A slurping sound, and then the sound of a glass being set on a desk. "Pour me another," the general said, and the clink of bottle to glass followed. "Could be worse."

"Oh?"

"You remember Bailey's big photo op? That little Latina he rescued out of the wreck in Santa Fe?"

"Yeah."

"Guess who it was."

"Damned if I know, Alex."

The general chuckled. "Her name was Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. She went to the orphanage in Albuquerque, and that fat bastard Maybourne drafted her for Dewdrop."

"Wait. Isabella? Flynn's Isabella? The hot little Latina slave girl?"

"She was Echo Three. Yes."

"Son of a bitch." There was silence for a moment, then the mayor said, "Fucking Flynn. He never intended to loan her to me at all. Selfish bastard."

"Thinking with the little head as always, Dutch."

"Hey, it's worked well for me," the mayor said. "I mean, you think I would have gotten involved with the Council without the promise of slaves eventually?"

"I didn't even realize that was the goal," Archer said. "You and the Council suckered me into trying to fix the government without ever telling me what the real goal was."

"We did fix the government. Eventually. And, hey, we get to treat subhuman scum like they deserve now, and if they don't do what we say, we get to fuck 'em over."

The general grunted in agreement. "Need to go take a piss," he said.

Holly turned off the recording, grabbed her certificates, and snuck out of the office.

* * *

"Catch," Isabella said, drawing back the bow.

Colin ran through the routine to bring all his implants up to full speed - almost second-nature now. The world slowed, and he wondered if he'd ever achieve the same casual reliance on them that Isabella had. She'd had them in place for five years now, and interacting with them seemed like second nature for her.

He'd had the full set in place for less than a week now; the last ones had been the set that increased his reaction speed. Isabella had said they felt like the world slowed down, but she had understated it, he felt. The biggest problem was keeping his body under control, because momentum was still a thing.

He crouched down, wiggling his fingers in anticipation, and nodded to Isabella. She fired the bow, its blunted arrow aimed past him. He reached out for it, but his arms didn't quite move as quickly as he wanted them to, and his hand closed on empty air a few centimeters behind the tail of the arrow. Behind him, he heard it hit the padded target where she had been aiming.

"Almost," Isabella said. "Again?"

He nodded as she notched another arrow, drawing the bow back smoothly. It was a basic recurve bow, fairly lightweight for her, and he suspected she didn't have her full set of implants active in order to keep from breaking it.

"Ready," he said.

She loosed again, and he anticipated it better this time. His arm flashed out as the arrow drifted past, and this time he was closer. His hand hit the arrow just before the fletching, but he couldn't quite grasp it; instead, he knocked it away, and it clattered to the ground.

"Better," she said.

"Thank you." He stood up and stretched before crouching down again.

Isabella stepped to the side to change the angle as she notched another arrow. "Ready?"

"Shoot," he said.

She drew and released in one motion, to his other side. He saw the arrow coming toward him, wobbling slightly in flight, and reached out for it with his off-hand. He grasped it around the middle, his fingers closing around it, and snatched it out of the air.

"Yes!" he shouted, holding it up as he powered down the implants.

"Nicely done!" she said, smiling at him. She set the bow down, and reached into the case on the floor, pulling out a high-power compound bow. With a vicious grin, she said, "This should be about two and a half, maybe three times faster. Ready?"

Colin re-activated the implants and crouched down. "Ready."

* * *

Holly sat in another park, looking at her burner phone.

 _I don't believe I have a recording of two men confessing to setting the Danville bomb._

She'd listened to it several times over the past week, and each time, it was more damning. The mayor had set the bomb to bring back slavery, because he liked the idea of owning people. The general had set it because he wanted to help this Council overthrow the government. But, regardless, they had been involved in the deaths of hundreds of people in Danville alone, and deliberately led the country into a civil war that had killed millions and enslaved far too many more.

But she wasn't sure if she should send it to her contact. She wasn't sure what the effect of this news would be. And, most importantly, she wasn't sure if there was any way it could be used without it being traced back to her.

There had long been rumors of some sort of conspiracy behind the civil war, tied to a group that had been involved with pushing through the slavery laws. They'd always been pooh-poohed as yet another crackpot idea from the tinfoil-hat crowd.

And all she had was a recording of some voices. She could say they were Archer and Abercrombie, but there was no proof. The sound quality was good, but not good enough that their identities could be proven.

She looked at the phone. She'd put the recording on a memory card, and put that in the burner phone. All she had to do was turn on the phone and send it.

She took a deep breath, and turned on the phone. She uploaded the recording to the email provider, and emailed it off with a note.

 **Recorded this the other day. It's the Mayor and General Archer talking about how they were behind the Santa Fe bombing, on the orders of some group called the Council.**

 **Please be careful with this, it's likely traceable. Don't leak it directly if you can help it.**

She paused a moment, in case there was a reply.

 **You may have just given us the missing link. We'll be careful with it.**

With a smile, she turned off the phone and started to walk home.

* * *

Archer hung up the secure phone and stared at it a moment before setting it on his desk. His superior in the Council - a Senator known by codename 'Scenic Harvest' - had called to tell him that there had been a leak of some sort, and that he should pass it down to Dutch.

 _A leak? That's all I need right now. I blew the Dewdrop thing, Sledgehammer is going exactly nowhere so far, and now there may be a leak of the Danville job, and it may even be my fault._

 _Fuck me sideways. We've kept the Council under wraps for almost twenty years now. If I'm the one who leaks it, I am screwed._

Muttering curses, he picked up the secure phone again. He unlocked it with a thumbprint and PIN, then dialed one of the few numbers it could call. This was intended to be the most secure cell phone possible - all calls were encrypted before bouncing through anonymization servers.

A moment later, the other end of the line picked up. "Jumping Jack," Dutch's voice said.

"Acid Test," Archer said, giving his own code name in response to Dutch's.

"What's up?" Dutch asked.

"Just got word from above. Remember when I was there on Shatter Day and and we talked about Danville and Santa Fe?"

"Vaguely. We were a couple bottles in by then."

"Somebody recorded it and leaked it to the ASF."

A pause and a rustle on the other end. "Fuck. How did we find out about it?"

"Don't know. I don't have need-to-know. They want you to poke around at your end and see if you can find anything. Don't trust anyone."

"I know the drill. This isn't my first rodeo. My office gets swept for bugs regularly, but I don't know if it has in a couple weeks. That'll be fixed."

"Take care of it. I'm available if you need resources."

"Will do. Jumping Jack out."

* * *

Phineas looked at the videoconference screen, split two ways. On the left, Vanessa was in her Toronto office. On the right, the DRDC director in charge of the project, Jean Blanchard, stared out from the screen.

"So, both test subjects seem to have acclimated well?" Director Blanchard asked.

"Yes," Phineas said, leaning closer to the microphone. "Ms. Garcia-Shapiro has fully adjusted to her improved implants. Warrant Officer Park is gaining familiarity with them quickly, and is already at approximately half what we estimate his final levels will be."

"So quickly?" Vanessa asked.

"He had a couple advantages," Phineas said. "First, he's male, so there's a bit more muscle mass to work with. Second, he was an extremely fit male in peak condition, so he's starting from an even higher point. He's actually drawing even with her on pure strength issues now. She's faster than he is, still, and that's likely to remain the case, because he has more mass to move."

"Okay. So, where do we go from here?" Director Blanchard asked.

"I'd like a couple more weeks of testing before we move forward with more test subjects," Phineas said, "but it might be a good time to start figuring out who the next test subjects will be."

"I'll see what I can do on that," Director Blanchard said.

"How many subjects in the next round of testing?" Vanessa asked. "So we can have the necessary materials on hand for production."

"I'd say three or four," Phineas said. "No more than half a dozen."

"I'd agree with that." Director Blanchard said.

"Doctor Tjinder will be heading back east in a couple of days," Phineas said. "I think Ferb's going, too, he wanted to sync up with you on deployment, Director."

"Excellent. I look forward to it," Director Blanchard said.

From the soft smile on her face, Phineas suspected that Vanessa was looking forward to it, too.


	8. Flights

"Holly?"

"Yes, Mayor?" She looked up at him, leaning out the door of his office. He looked a bit shaken and confused, with a sheet of paper in his hand.

"Why did you badge into the building on Shatter Day?"

A cold chill ran down her spine, and she hoped that it didn't show. _Fuck. He knows. He found out about the recording._ _Bluff._ "Did I?"

"The security log says you did, about 6:30pm."

"Oh, right. I forgot the certificates for the award ceremony in my desk. So I stopped in to get them before the banquet."

"Oh." He looked slightly relieved. "Did you see anyone here, or hear anything?"

"It sounded like you were talking to somebody in there, but I didn't catch any details. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I just grabbed the certificates and left."

"Did you see anyone else? Outside the office? Did anyone tailgate in the door behind you?"

"No, I don't think so, but I was kind of preoccupied."

"Thanks, Holly."

"No problem, Mayor."

He went back inside his office, closing the door firmly, and she exhaled slowly.

* * *

Ferb rolled his suitcase in to the hotel suite, closing the door behind him. He'd let Vanessa know as soon as he'd landed, and she'd said she'd meet him here shortly. He was looking forward to it quite a bit, since he hadn't been able to get back east for 6 weeks, since Valentine's Day.

"Hey there," Vanessa's voice came from the bedroom. An eyebrow raised, he leaned in through the open door.

Vanessa lay in the bed, the sheets pulled up to her armpits. Above the sheets, her shoulders were bare, and her long brown hair spread out across the pillow. She leaned up on her elbows, making the sheet slip down a bit but not enough to reveal anything.

"Hi," Ferb said. "I wasn't expecting you quite so soon."

"I missed you," she said. "So I got Sergeant Calhoun to let me in."

Ferb loosened his tie, pulling it free of his shirt. "I missed you too," he said as he unbuttoned his shirt. "Mind if I join you?"

"I'm rather looking forward to it," she said.

* * *

"General?" Higgs said, leaning in through the open door.

"Yes?" Archer said, looking up at her.

"You wanted to know if multiple targets were away at the same time. Romeo One and Tango One are both in Toronto."

He sat up. "Really. Where?"

"Tango One is in his apartment. Romeo One is in the Royal York Hotel with Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"Hm. What's the security on each of them?"

"No security on Tango One. Romeo One has a four-man military police squad protecting him."

General Archer smiled. "Okay. Prep snatch teams, then." _Finally, the first thing that's gone my way in months._

His Council-issued phone buzzed in his pocket. "I need to take a call, Higgs. Close the door, please?"

She nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

"Acid Test," he said into it.

"Jumping Jack. I think I know who our leak is. I'm going in to look for more evidence."

 _And that's the second._

* * *

Holly packed her work for the day up. _Quitting time, finally._ The Mayor had stepped out an hour earlier on a personal matter, so she didn't have any reason to stay late tonight.

She was halfway to the elevator when the door opened with a _*ding*_ , and Mayor Abercrombie stepped out, accompanied by a young man wearing lieutenant's bars. She recognized him - Lieutenant Rockwell was the Mayor's escort whenever he needed to work with the military.

"Holly...why'd you do it?" the mayor asked, a pained look on his face.

"Do what?" She looked around, as surreptitiously as she could. The staircase down was about five steps in front of her, while the mayor and the lieutenant were about three times that far beyond it. The other offices nearby could only trap her in place.

"You know what I mean, Holly. We checked the security footage. You were in the office for twenty minutes. You weren't just grabbing the certificates and heading out, were you?"

"I had to look for them," she said nervously.

"We searched your apartment and found this," he said, holding up her burner phone. "The recording is on the card." He sighed. "Why, Holly?"

 _Here goes nothing_ , she thought as she leapt forward, running for the staircase. The soldier pulled out a futuristic gun that looked like something from a TV show, and fired. The shot hit her in the chest, and she felt the world fade away as she slid to the floor.

* * *

"That went well," Ferb said as he walked out of the DRDC building with Vanessa and Doctor Tjinder.

"Yes, it did," Vanessa said. She was coolly professional here, just a glint in her eyes to hint of their deeper relationship.

Director Blanchard had agreed to their plan for the next level of Obelisk testing, and had updated Ferb on the tumbler shields being deployed to major Canadian cities and military bases. After a long, fruitful discussion, he'd sent them off with congratulations on a job well done.

They reached the cars waiting for them. Vanessa had to go back to the office for the afternoon, while Doctor Tjinder was going to visit his parents and Ferb had some shopping in mind. He'd love to get Vanessa something nice, and hadn't had much opportunity in Suffield. For some reason, he didn't think the exchange would have what he was looking for.

"I'll see you for dinner?" Vanessa said.

"Indeed," Ferb said.

She smiled and gave him a quick kiss before trotting over to her little sports car, sitting in the visitor parking nearby. Doc headed over to his own utilitarian sedan, a silver Honda Accord. Ferb wistfully thought of his Shelby Cobra, left behind in the underground parking garage at Fletcher-Flynn when he fled the country. Shaking his head, he climbed into the SUV that was waiting for him, driven by Sergeant Calhoun with the rest of his men riding along.

"Where to, Mr. Fletcher?" Sergeant Calhoun asked.

"Is there somewhere around the hotel where I could do a bit of shopping?"

"Eaton Centre's near there. What are you looking for?"

"Something for Ms. Doofenshmirtz."

"Might want Bloor-Yorkville, it's a bit fancier," Corporal Newsome said from the back seat.

"Oh, that sounds good. Let's head there," Ferb said.

The sergeant drove skillfully through the early-afternoon traffic before ruthlessly using his military credentials to get them a preferred parking space. The security team flanked Ferb as he wandered the shops. He felt uninspired by what he saw, unsure what would be a good gift. Jewelry seemed like a cop-out, lingerie was a bit too much a present for himself, and he wasn't sure enough of her size to get her other clothing. She had enough money that there weren't many things she would want but couldn't get herself if she wanted to.

He was pondering this when Corporal Newsome quietly said, "We're being followed."

Ferb hadn't noticed them, and managed to keep himself from looking around to see them.

"I see them," Sergeant Calhoun said. "Requesting backup. Mr. Fletcher, we should go somewhere safer."

"The hotel?"

"That would be appreciated, yes," the sergeant said. He spoke briefly into his headset as they marched back to the parking space. "Wait here while we check the vehicle, please," he said, standing next to Ferb as the rest of the team looked inside and underneath the SUV.

"Clear," Corporal Newsome said, and they bundled Ferb into the truck and started back toward the hotel.

"Another squad will meet us there," Calhoun said, "and a third is tracking the folks following us."

"Sorry to cause trouble," Ferb said.

Sergeant Calhoun grinned. "You're not causing trouble. Bunch of Americans are. And we'll end it."

They reached the hotel, where Corporal Newsome led Ferb and the other two bodyguards back toward the elevator while Sergeant Calhoun parked the SUV. "Hold here, please," the corporal said.

A moment later, Sergeant Calhoun came walking back toward them, his eyes scanning the area constantly. "No sign we were followed. Delta Squad is already up checking the rooms."

They entered the elevator and rode up to the 15th floor. The hallway had two uniformed MPs standing guard by the door to Ferb's room. "Room is clear, sir," one of them said.

Sergeant Calhoun walked toward them, suspicious. "I don't recognize you, soldier. Where's Delta Squad?"

Ferb looked, and noticed that instead of the standard sidearm, they had DIMMERs holstered at their sides. "They're Americans," he said.

Before he could say it was a trap, both soldiers at the door drew their DIMMERs and fired, knocking out Sergeant Calhoun and another bodyguard. A door behind them popped open a moment later, and a third soldier leaned out, adding his fire to the mix. Ferb felt a shock in the middle of his back, and an instant later, his world blacked out.

* * *

Phineas was cuddling with Isabella on the couch, taking a well-earned day off and watching the Danville Dolphins lose the first game of the baseball season, when his phone rang. She leaned up, annoyance on her face, as he answered it.

"Hey, Vanessa," he said, recognizing the number on it.

"Phineas?" She sounded distressed. "Have you heard from Ferb? He was supposed to meet me for dinner tonight, but he's not answering his phone."

"No, I haven't. That's unlike him. Maybe it broke?"

"I suppose. He'd probably call to tell me, though."

"Call the hotel, see if he's there?"

"That's a good idea, thanks."

"Let me know what you hear, okay?"

"Will do." The line went dead.

"What's up?" Isabella asked.

"Vanessa can't get a hold of Ferb."

"Weird. That's not like him."

"That's what I said!"

Shaking her head, she lay her head back on his chest to watch the game.

He couldn't concentrate on it. He resisted the urge to call Vanessa back, certain she was doing everything she could to find Ferb.

His phone rang again, and he answered it before the first ring was finished. "What happened?"

"The hotel says he went upstairs hours ago and hasn't left. There's no answer from his room phone, the room phone for his bodyguards, or from knocking on either door."

"What? That's..."

"That's bad. I'm going to check with the military next, and see if they can get in contact with his bodyguards."

"Thanks, Vanessa." The line went dead again.

"So?" Isabella asked.

"He's not in his hotel room, as far as they can tell."

They sat for a few more minutes, Phineas glancing at the phone, not even pretending to watch the baseball game. Finally, it rang again; he answered and put it on speaker.

"So?" he asked.

"He's gone." Vanessa sounded near tears. "His bodyguards called in to report that they were being followed, so they took him back to the room. But it was a set-up, and the Americans had already knocked out the guards who had been called in as backup, and then knocked out his bodyguards with those DIMMER pistols. The bodyguards were all tied up in his room. They're trying to track him, but no luck so far. They just took him." On the other end of the line, Vanessa started to cry.

"Are they trying to figure out where he was taken?" Isabella asked.

"Of course," Vanessa sniffed.

"Should I come out to help?" Phineas asked.

"No!" Isabella said. "They waited until Ferb was back east, because it's easier to get to him there. Don't you go too!"

"Yeah, you need to stay there where it's safe," Vanessa agreed.

"I wonder why they waited until now," Phineas said. "I mean, he's been back a few times, right?"

"Well, he hasn't for a month and a half or so, so maybe they just got everything in place?" Vanessa said.

"Or maybe...Doc went with him, maybe they wanted to grab both of them?" Isabella suggested.

"Doc's a Canadian, they wouldn't want to kidnap him would they?" Phineas said.

On the other end of the phone, Vanessa stopped crying suddenly. "They wouldn't. Let me check...I'll call you back in a minute."

They sat up. Phineas grasped Isabella's hand, squeezing softly.

"It'll be okay," she said. "We'll get him back."

"How?" Phineas asked. "We need to find him, and if they get him back across the border..."

The phone rang again. "And?" Isabella asked.

"You caught it, Isabella. Doctor Tjinder is gone as well. He never made it to his parents' house," Vanessa said.

"So what do we do now?" Phineas asked.

"They're saying that if we don't find them tonight, they'll probably be across the border. So I'll be flying out to Suffield tomorrow morning if we haven't recovered them yet."

"Sounds good," Phineas said. "We'll get them back, Vanessa. I promise you that."

* * *

Holly woke up in the small cell. She'd woken up here yesterday, after getting hit with the knockout gun in Danville. The cell was tiny and simple - a solid bed with no blanket and a lump at one end to act as a pillow, a one-piece toilet, a small sink, and a computer screen and keyboard built into a table with a chair in front of it. Food arrived through a slot at the bottom of the door, and had arrived three times before she fell asleep the day before.

She assumed it was the day before. There was no window. The computer had no indication of time anywhere on its display. Various propaganda shows were available, but that was it. She'd watched a few for lack of anything else to do.

The slot opened, and a tray was slid in. On it was a sandwich, which she picked up. Turkey and American cheese, lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise. Not her favorite, but she was hungry enough not to complain. Not that she had anyone to complain to anyway.

 _Are they just going to leave me here forever?_ She wondered as she ate the sandwich. As she ate, the slot slid open again, and a hand pulled the tray back out. She thought about trying to make their lives more difficult by keeping the trays out of reach, but decided that was unwise, given that they may just stop giving her food until she returned the tray.

She finished the sandwich and went over to the sink to wash her hands and take a drink. With a sigh, she sat in the chair. She recognized most of the propaganda videos from her time in the military - all about the perfidy of the other factions, and the stalwart defense of freedom from the Central faction.

She turned off the screen and stretched herself out on the bed. They'd put her in soft pajama-like clothes, which she found a little bit creepy, especially the lack of underwear. She hoped the mayor hadn't been involved in that. He didn't generally find black women attractive, but after his latest slave had been liberated, he'd taken to eyeing her again.

The door clicked and swung open. Two guards in face-shielded helmets stood there. "Come with us," one of them said in a rough voice.

It took only a moment for Holly to decide to go along. She didn't want to know what they'd do if she fought back, and her options were better if she let them think she'd cooperate all the time. She stood and walked toward them; they hung back to give her room to enter the hall. The hallway was brightly-lit by fluorescent bulbs, but there were no windows, just four identical doors on each side. At the far end, a pair of closed double-doors showed light through frosted windows.

The guards led her through the doors, which led to another hallway. Doors along it had simple labels on them such as "Grand Justiciar" and "Grand Custodian". Halfway along the hall, they told her to stop and led her through a pair of double doors marked "Council".

The room inside was dark, dimly lit by flickering candles. One wall was dominated by a raised desk with several seats behind it; on the front of the desk, a large TV screen was turned off. The rest of the room was bare except for a small stool in the center, with a small table attached to the front of it. The guards shoved her forward, leading her to the stool. They pushed her down to kneel on it, her arms resting on the table. One guard reached in front of the table, pulling up a pair of steel manacles. She started to try to stand up, but the guard behind her shoved her back down as the other guard locked her wrists to the table. She tugged at the manacles, rattling the chain, as she felt the guard draw a strap around her calves, fastening them to the stool.

 _Guess I'm not going anywhere_ , she thought.

On the wall in front of her, the TV screen flickered to life. Three hooded figures looked out at her from a dark room.

"Holly Sojourner Washington," one of them said, in a deep, gravelly voice that was obviously not his normal timbre. "You are accused of leaking the secrets of the Council of Sanford, to wit, recording a conversation between two members of the Council and transmitting it to members of the Anti-Slavery Front. We have investigated the charge. We find you guilty as charged. Your sentence is enslavement in perpetuity with no chance of release. You shall be placed under the ownership of the Council."

"This is bullshit!" she yelled. "Where's my trial?"

"They can't hear you," one of the guards said.

"You're probably complaining about not getting a trial," the hooded figure said. "You're right, you don't. You're right, this isn't legal. We don't care. You'll never be free again to complain. Collar her."

A guard, behind her, pushed her hair aside and locked a collar around her neck.

"Fuckers," Holly muttered.

"Silence, slave," one of the guards said, slapping her on the top of her head.

"You will be sent off to be an experimental subject," the hooded figure said. "Your good friend General Archer needs test subjects. Some of them may even survive. But probably not."

Holly glared at the screen.

"In an ideal world, we'd make an example of you, to teach others not to interfere with the Council of Sanford. But, that would involve letting people know about us, and we don't want that. So...we'll just make sure you never get a chance to talk to anyone about this. Consider yourself lucky. If Archer didn't need test subjects, we would have just given you to Mayor Abercrombie for a while. What was left after he was done would end up in a shallow grave."

 _Eek. Okay, yeah, could be worse._

"Guards, prep her to go to Archer's test site." The screen blinked off.

One of the guards clipped a leash to her collar, while the other unlocked the manacles. Forcing her wrists behind her, he handcuffed her before removing the strap holding her to the stool.

"Up, slave," the guard holding the leash said, giving it a tug.

 _Fuckers. I will make them regret this._

 _Somehow._

* * *

Ferb woke in a dimly-lit room. He blinked a few times, looking around as he sat up. An unfamiliar weight sat around his neck; reaching up, he realized it was a slave collar, or something extremely similar. _Back in the States again, apparently._ He was dressed in what felt like loose knit clothing which (he noted with a small amount of concern) seemed to lack underwear.

The room itself was spartan, at least what he could see in the dim light coming through the crack under the door. A dresser of some sort, a desk with a computer that was turned off.

He swung his legs off the bed and stood up, listening intently. There was no other noise - the room was oddly silent, more so than he'd expect. The air held a faint antiseptic odor.

He walked to the door, looking at it closely. It opened inward, but appeared to lock from the other side. He pressed on the handle as quietly as he could, and was unsurprised to find that it didn't move.

Nodding, he walked around the room, seeing if there was anything else he could work with. The bed looked like the base was a solid unit including the pillow, but a blanket sat on top of it. A dark shadow in one corner was probably a camera, he suspected. There didn't appear to be anything else handy that he could work with, so he lay back down on the bed, listening intently.

He saw the light under the door dim briefly, as if somebody were walking past, but couldn't hear any footsteps. Evidently the soundproofing in this room was quite good. He was a bit concerned about that, to be honest. A moment later, it dimmed again for just a moment.

He watched to see if anything else happened, but there was nothing. He lay back and tried to sleep some more, figuring that he'd need his strength when they came for him.

The light dimmed again, and stayed dim for a moment. Ferb pondered being ready to jump, but decided that he was not in a position to do that, and to wait until he better knew the situation he was in. Instead, he sat up, leaning against the wall, and faced the door.

The lights in the ceiling came on, and Ferb blinked at the sudden brightness. The room was much as he had expected, with clinical white walls and furniture. Ferb remained still, watching the door as it swung open slowly.

"I told you you'd regret leaving, Fletcher," General Archer said from the doorway.


	9. I Always Wanted To See Montana

"To be honest, General, no, I do not regret it," Ferb said.

"Well, I'll have to fix that," the general said as he entered the room. "You cost me a lot, you know. That idiot Riggins is in charge of Special Research Projects now."

"You were a fool to think I'd turn on my brother."

"You were a fool to go with him. I thought you loved your father more than that." The general nodded toward the door. "This way."

Ferb followed him out the door. The white hallway had two doors on each side, and one more at the far end from where Ferb came out. The general led him through the door at the end, which opened into a small lounge area. Doctor Tjinder was sitting on the couch, wearing a collar and knits similar to Ferb's. Behind him, a young woman with short blonde hair and a silver lieutenant's bar on her collar held a slave-control remote.

"Ferb, who is this, where are we, and why are we here?" Doc asked, confused. "The lieutenant here has been remarkably reticent."

"Doctor Tjinder, this is General Alexander Archer, in charge of Project Sledgehammer, the American version of Obelisk," Ferb said as General Archer looked on, amused.

"Oh, him. Okay," Doc said, nodding.

"Last I heard he'd been reassigned to Montana, so I'd assume that's where we are, and presumably he kidnapped us because whatever scientists he assigned to Sledgehammer can't tell their arse from their elbow without an anatomy chart," Ferb continued.

Archer snorted with amusement. "Kidnapping is such an awkward term. I prefer repatriated."

"I am a Canadian national," Doctor Tjinder noted. "Repatriating would involve sending me back to Canada. Or possibly India."

"Collateral damage," Archer dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand.

"An act of war," Ferb noted. "Not your first."

"Won't be my last, either," Archer said. "Son, I'm too far into this to back off now. I need Dewdrop-class soldiers within six months, and you two are going to give them to me."

"Or?" Ferb asked.

Archer looked at the young woman. "Lieutenant Knox, if you please?"

The lieutenant pushed a button, and Ferb felt a brutal shock from his collar. His world went black as all his senses were short-circuited by the agony around his neck.

And then, an eternity later, it stopped. Ferb felt his neck, certain that the skin would be burnt and flaking off, but it felt completely normal.

"Induction system. Leaves no marks, but hurts like hell," Archer said. "So, if you two gentlemen will follow me, I'll show you to your lab."

* * *

"Okay. Do we have any idea where they might have taken Ferb and Doc?" Phineas asked.

They'd gathered in the base's conference room to try to plan what to do next. Lieutenant Colonel Scott sat at the head of the table as base commander. Captain Desjardins sat next to him, as commander of the platoon handling security and volunteers for upgrades. Across the table, Colin and Isabella represented the Obelisk-enhanced individuals. Next to Captain Desjardins, Vanessa represented Doofenshmirtz Biosciences as Doc's employer. Phineas held down the foot of the table, nominally representing DRDC.

"Security is still trying to figure out how they got out of the country, but they're fairly sure they did somehow," Colonel Scott said. "Once they track that down, it should help us figure out where they went afterwards."

"Let's look at it from the other end," Vanessa said. "Where are the likely destinations?"

"Do you think General Archer was responsible? He's not in charge of Special Research Projects any more," Colonel Scott said. "A General Riggins took over shortly after you defected."

"Riggins isn't ambitious enough to try something like this," Phineas said. "And Archer would want to get his own back. I suspect he kept Sledgehammer for himself."

"Sledgehammer being...?" Colonel Scott asked.

"American version of Obelisk," Phineas said.

"Which is...?" Colonel Scott gestured him to continue.

"Codeword classified," Captain Desjardins said, embarrassed.

The colonel sighed deeply. "Of course. Not like I'm supposed to know what the hell is going on on my own base."

"Sorry," Phineas said.

"Okay. So, we'll assume that General Archer has kidnapped these two scientists for use on this Project Sledgehammer?" the colonel said.

"That seems reasonable," Isabella said. "Do we know where Archer is?"

"Last I heard, he was at Fort Harrison in Montana," Phineas said.

"That's just across the border, isn't it?" Colin said.

"Maybe?" Phineas said. "Geography was never my strong point."

"Five hundred kilometers, almost due south," Captain Desjardins said.

"Okay. So we need to sneak across...what, three hundred kilometers of American soil, retrieve two people, and sneak back to safety in Canada?" Phineas said.

"That's assuming we're going to go get them," Colonel Scott said.

"Can we afford to leave them there?" Vanessa asked. "I mean, they're two of the top researchers in the country, both working on projects critical to national security. I can put Doofenshmirtz Financial's resources behind whatever we need," Vanessa added.

"I'll provide whatever needs to be invented to make it work," Phineas said.

"I'm willing to go in," Isabella said.

"I'm not quite 100% yet, but I'll go too," Colin added.

"The problem isn't that, it's getting whatever team gets sent across hostile territory, and then finding the targets once you arrive," Captain Desjardins said. "Without getting caught and causing an international incident."

"And that's assuming that this whole guess is right that they're at Fort Harrison to begin with," the colonel said. "I'd like to get that confirmed before we make any rash decisions."

"Okay. Let me see what I can do to get you that information," Phineas said.

* * *

The compartment Holly had been placed in opened with a _*click_ *, and the door opened. She'd been led into the back of a truck, and placed in a small compartment toward the front of the cargo area. It had a chemical toilet and a light panel, and not much else. The truck had then driven for several days, she thought - she'd had no way to keep track of time except for when they'd stopped the truck every few hours. She assumed it was so the driver had a chance to eat; whenever it happened, another MRE got dropped in through an air vent at the top.

She was surprised that nobody had tried to rape her; she'd known enough slaves to realize how common that was for anyone wearing a collar. She suspected it was because she knew too much, and the Council wanted to keep her away from anyone she could talk to.

She remembered General Archer saying he'd been transferred to Montana, so she suspected that was where she had ended up. The door swung open the rest of the way, and she shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight behind the person opening the door.

"This way, slave," the guard said in a rough voice. Still shading her eyes, she stumbled toward him. Her legs were wobbly from not being able to walk much for the past few days. "Turn around," he said. She turned, and felt the handcuffs ratchet down on her wrists. He fastened them as tight as they'd go, cutting into her skin, and she grimaced silently.

He spun her around, clipping a leash to her collar, and gave it a tug. She blinked at the bright light and stumbled after him, still in the soft pajamas they'd put her in when she'd been captured. He led her on to a ramp that led down to ground level. She followed him down, her bare feet hurting against the cold, sharp metal tread of the ramp. She hissed softly from the pain.

The garage the truck was parked in was small and dark, and as she came out, the doors rolled down. They closed with a clang, and now she found herself peering into the darkened room. The guard tugged on her leash again, and she followed him to an unmarked door to one side.

"Where...?" she started to ask.

"Don't," the guard said. "I've been ordered to ignore any questions you ask, and shoot you if you try to tell me anything. Just keep quiet, and we're both happier."

Holly nodded, keeping her mouth shut as he knocked on the door. It had a palmprint reader next to it, but no other indication of what it was.

After a moment, a short young Caucasian woman in Army fatigues with a silver lieutenant's bar on her collar opened the door. "This the new one?" she asked the guard.

"I don't know anything. They told me to get her out of the truck and bring her to you," he said. "Now she's your problem."

"Noted. Thank you, corporal. You, follow me," she said to Holly, taking the leash.

Holly followed her through the door. The hallway beyond it was sterile white, and smelled of cleaning chemicals. Sounds seemed oddly muted, as if they were afraid to echo. A door sat across from this one, another immediately to her left at the near end, and one far to the right at the other end.

"Welcome to Sanford West," the lieutenant said, turning to her and unclipping the leash. "You can speak freely in here, as long as you do it respectfully. Everyone you find in here falls into two categories - either they're affiliated with the Council, or they're another slave like you."

"Meaning they crossed the Council and are never leaving here alive," Holly said.

"Got it in one. I'm Lieutenant Knox, I'm in charge of keeping those of you down here healthy until the Council's done with you. Work with me, and I'll be the best friend you could have." She turned and looked Holly in the eye, having to look up to do so. "Cross me and you'll regret it for the rest of your short, miserable life. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am," Holly said.

"Good. I'm glad we can come to an agreement on that. Turn around."

Holly turned around, and she felt the handcuffs jerk a bit as they were unlocked. She rubbed her wrists in gratitude.

The lieutenant swiped a card across the reader on the door at the near end of the hall, then pressed her palm to the pad. The door clicked, and she swung it open.

"The doors are all secure," the lieutenant said. "You won't get them open without my cooperation. Don't try."

"Noted," Holly said.

The lieutenant swung the door open, gesturing Holly inside. A small lounge awaited, with a small television and two worn couches. A pale, middle-aged man in a loose knit outfit like Holly's sat on the couch drinking a glass of water; a collar around his neck indicated which category he fell into.

"Erik, this is Holly, she's going to be joining you," the lieutenant said.

Erik looked up and nodded to Holly. "Thanks, Kimmy," he said.

"Lieutenant Knox," the lieutenant said testily.

"Is that any way to treat your old Uncle Erik, Kimmy?"

The lieutenant rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Show her where everything in here is," she said. "I'll be back to grab the two of you for testing in an hour." Muttering to herself, she badged back through the door, closing it firmly behind her.

Chuckling to himself, Erik levered himself up off the couch. "Erik Bailey. Nice to meet you. What'd you do to piss off our malevolent overlords?" He extended a hand toward her.

Holly shook his hand; his grip was firm and confident. "Recorded Mayor Abercrombie and General Archer confessing to the Danville bombing, and the Council setting up the war so they could bring back slavery. Then sent the recording to the Anti-Slavery Front."

Erik whistled in appreciation. "Nice. Wish I'd had that sort of evidence."

"Why are you here? Wait, did you say Erik Bailey? They mentioned you on the recording..."

"Long story," he said. "Let me show you around." He nodded toward one of the two doorways leading out of the room.

"We've got time," Holly said, heading toward the door. Beyond was a small L-shaped hallway.

"Good point. I suppose I can talk while we walk." Five doors came off of the small hallway. "Four bedrooms. I'm in #2, you're in #1. It's just the two of us in here at the moment. If you want to move to another one, I don't think they'll object."

Holly looked into #1. It was a small room with a bed and a small dresser. Inside the dresser were more outfits like the one she had on. A desk held a computer screen and keyboard.

As she inspected the room, Erik talked. "I worked for the Council. Was one of the local heads for Southwest."

"They said you were responsible for Santa Fe."

He paused, sighing deeply. "Yeah. Not my first mistake, but my worst."

"Why are you here, then?"

"Well, when the Mexicans took Los Angeles, the Council lost a lot of its top political leaders in the Southwest. We were getting a lot of pushback on the slavery laws, and I could see which way the local winds were going, so I bailed on the Council and helped Southwest stay free the best I could. There were...other reasons, too. And when we lost, they decided to punish me for apostasy."

"You knew where the bodies were buried, then."

"Pretty much. And I'm lucky one of them wasn't mine." He headed back out the door. "Bathroom's at the end of the hall. We all share one."

"So we just hang around here?" she asked, following him.

"That's what the other side is for. This way," he said, leading her across the lounge and through another door. "Dining area in there," he pointed at a small nook off the hallway with a small table and four chairs, "but I usually just eat in front of the TV. Kim brings us meals, usually. They don't trust us with anyone who isn't fully briefed on the Council, and there aren't many of those here, really. Usually it's just Kim and Alex. Kim's lowest on the totem pole."

"How did a fresh lieutenant end up involved?" Holly asked.

"Her parents were Council leaders in Columbia, instrumental in the military takeover there." He gestured to the other doors in the hallway. "Spare bedding and towels in there, laundry machines behind there. No maid service, so it's all self-serve."

"And the door on the end?"

"That leads to the research labs here in lovely Sanford West, and through them to the other slave pen. This is the test subject side, that's the researcher side. A couple new ones came in recently, slaves this time, kidnapped from Canada. I'm actually surprised the last couple researchers didn't end up on this side wearing collars, to be honest. They were pretty pathetic. But they had friends in high places, or they wouldn't have been cleared to be in here at all."

"So do we go through?"

"Only when Kimmy tells us to."

"Is there a reason you call her Kimmy, instead of Lieutenant Knox?"

"I'm her godfather, actually. Her parents were good friends of mine before Shatter Day."

Holly paused, staring at him for a moment. "Seriously?"

"Oh, yes. Quite." He gestured back toward the lounge. "Should we sit while we wait for Kimmy to get back?"

"Sure." She followed him back and took a seat on one of the couches. He reached over and turned off the TV before sitting on the other.

"So," he said, "I knew Abercrombie and Archer were involved in Danville - it was obvious, since they 'just happened' to be there for recovery afterwards. That was part of the plan, actually. The folks who executed each attack would help with recovery until they were recalled to their posts. Same thing I did in Santa Fe. Made for good PR and it acted as cover for what we'd done. What else did they talk about that you recorded?"

"That they were both with the Council, and the whole goal had been slavery. Why is it the Council of Sanford, anyway?"

Erik looked oddly proud as he answered. "The winner of the most infamous Supreme Court case in history. Dred Scott vs. Sandford - it was misspelled, the owner's name was Sanford."

"So what was the deal with Nathan Hale's Liberators, then?"

"They were an existing group that we co-opted. Hale was Revolutionary War era, 'I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.' They were built around the idea that they might die but their beliefs would live on. Oh, they were really pretty horrible people. They made good fall guys, though, and since we controlled enough of the people investigating the attacks, we could point them appropriately. A whole bunch of assholes who wanted to establish a dictatorship in the name of Freedom."

"As opposed to the Council?"

Erik laughed. "Well, sort of. We were assholes who wanted to establish a dictatorship in the name of Being In Charge and Owning People. We were at least honest about what kind of assholes we were."

"To each other, at least."

"Anyway, I helped guide the little Northwest faction into Southwest in the consolidation. I was a Senator from Oregon for a while, and was getting ready to introduce the Servants for Loyal And Valued Entrepreneurs Act when Mexico got word of it."

Holly frowned at the acronym. "SLAVE Act? Seriously?"

"We figured subtlety was a bad idea, that we'd just go forward boldly and let people push back to what we wanted. We actually didn't figure we'd get full chattel slavery of POWs, to be honest. The goal was more that suitably-connected individuals could lease them for a while. But Central passed full-on slavery right off the bat, and then Dixie and Columbia followed. Everyone on the Council was surprised."

"So what happened with the SLAVE Act?"

"Some folks started talking about classifying being in the country illegally as treason, and thus an enslavement offense. Mexico saw the writing on the wall, and Mexican-Americans in southern California figured out pretty quickly that there would be a lot more collars on brown necks than pink. So the Mexican army came in and took the southern chunk of the state in the name of protecting their own. Problem was, a lot of the folks we had used to get power were in LA at the time, and were captured. Even the ones who got away lost their power base. So I never even introduced the bill. Instead, I started work on keeping Southwest separate. Pissed the Council off, but they couldn't touch me. I sponsored a bunch of research. Most of it was crap."

"Just most?"

"You'll see. Some of it is what they're working on on the other side."

There was a quiet beep outside the lounge door, and then a _*click*_ as it unlocked. Lieutenant Knox swung it open and gestured down the hall. "Time to get ready for some research, folks," she said.

* * *

Ferb poked at the lab instruments. They were all top-of-the-line, but still nowhere near as good as the ones they'd built in Suffield.

"I have no idea how they expect us to recreate the Obelisk implants de novo," Doc said, idly flipping through the controls for a nanobot programmer. "I mean, it was one thing to replicate them with a working example sitting in the scanner bay. It is another thing entirely to recreate them from scratch."

"Well, if somebody hadn't encrypted all his research before he left, you'd have more to work with," General Archer said as he wandered into the room.

Ferb gave him an unamused look. "It's the same raw data. It's not like there's that much missing."

"Principle of the thing," Archer said. "Time to meet your test subjects. You even know one of them, Fletcher."

Ferb raised an eyebrow.

The door into the other half of the slave pen unlocked with a _*click*_ , and Lieutenant Knox gestured two people in. The first was a pale man with a full head of greying hair. Just behind him was Holly, who was certainly not a person Ferb would have expected to see here. He saw that she, too, wore a collar, and wondered just what she'd done to deserve that.

"Your two test subjects. Holly you already know, obviously. And this is Erik Bailey, formerly of the Southwest Senate."

"Ferb?" Holly asked, confused. "I thought you got away to Canada."

"The long arm of justice can sometimes reach even that far north," General Archer said.

"He was even willing to kidnap a Canadian citizen to make it happen," Ferb noted.

"I do not think that was a wise move, to be honest," Doc said, lurking behind Ferb.

Archer shrugged. "It's done now. So, here's the deal. I'm not sure how far you've gotten on your Canadian version of Sledgehammer. But I figure you've got enough worked out so that you can get a working implant of some sort within a few weeks. Whichever kind you want. I'm not fussy."

"Or?" Ferb asked.

The general pulled a slave remote out of his pocket. "We can be persuasive."

Ferb shrugged. "Torturing someone into being creative is rarely effective."

"I'm aware of that, actually, Fletcher," General Archer said. "But, you're not the one I was planning to use this on." He tapped on the screen, and Holly and Erik dropped to their knees, clutching their collars. Holly's face was a silent rictus of pain, as Erik screamed. After a moment, Archer lifted his finger, and the screaming stopped. Holly glared at him as Erik leaned forward, steadying himself on his hands.

"Now, it's simple, Fletcher," Archer said smugly. "You can help us with our research, or your experimental subjects here will suffer. It's all up to you."

"Fuck you, General," Holly said, standing up and glaring at Archer. "Don't do it, Ferb. I can take whatever this asshole can dish out."

"It's far from the worst they've done to me," Erik said, pushing himself back up to his knees. "To hell with him."

General Archer's eyebrows rose. "Really. You'd do that for him?"

"No, Alex," Erik said. "I'd do it just to spite you."

"Not, perhaps, the wisest move you've made, Erik," Archer said. "But if you'd always made wise moves, you wouldn't be here with a collar around your neck." He blipped the remote briefly, making Erik yell. "Lieutenant Knox, take the subjects back to their quarters, and then meet me in my office."


	10. Now You See It

"So, what do we have?" Vanessa asked. Phineas had gotten this control center put together quickly, and it showed. Breadboarded circuits were barely hidden under hastily-fastened panels, and many parts were clearly reused from earlier objects. The screens had clearly been pulled from the body-scanner that they had been using to monitor Isabella's implants.

Behind her, Colonel Scott looked around dubiously. She didn't envy his position; Ottawa was making quiet protests in Chicago's direction, but nobody expected those to go anywhere. They had, ultimately, no proof that the Americans had taken the two scientists at all. So the Canadian Forces had been instructed not to stand in Phineas's way, but not to particularly help him either.

"Well, Ferb and I did a lot of work on stealth systems before we came up with the idea of the tumbler bomb," Phineas said. "It was actually an offshoot of the stealth work initially. We tried to use other dimensions for stealth, but it didn't work out."

"Okay. So what is this?" Colin asked.

Phineas patted the small, light-blue ovoid. "This is a sensor drone that's designed to seek out Ferb and Doc and return their location. It's set up to sniff their chemical signatures. It's got an enhanced stealth system that should render it almost invisible to American sensors. So we slip it across the border, it finds them, and then tells us where they are."

"What does it do until it finds a whiff of them?" Isabella asked.

"Random-walk. It'll go to Fort Harrison first, though, because that's where we think they are."

"And then what?" Vanessa asked.

"It tries to come back here. I considered having it try to carry escape tools to them, but it's too likely that it would get detected at that close a range."

"How does it communicate back?" Vanessa asked. "Doesn't that make stealth difficult if it's broadcasting?"

"It tightbeams data back to a drone on this side of the border. It has to be careful, though - if the Americans figure out it's receiving on any frequencies, they can use that to try to detect it. They're set to frequency-hop to try to keep it as undetectable as possible."

Colonel Scott looked at it and nodded. "Sounds good. Make it happen."

* * *

Holly had had some time with nothing else going on, so she'd talked to Erik some more about their situation. He'd said that they basically never had any issues with the slaves being abused while they were there. Sanford West, as the unit was called, was a hidden Council site within the larger base of Fort William Henry Harrison, just outside Helena, Montana. There were several other hidden Council sites at military bases around the country - at least one in the territory of each faction. Each site had its own purpose, most of which Erik wasn't currently familiar with.

Because Sanford West was restricted to cleared Council members only, the only people on the base who could come and go were General Archer and Lieutenant Knox. Since the general was busy with other duties in addition to his research work, that meant that day-to-day operations were all on Lieutenant Knox's shoulders.

"Why did the Council want slaves in the first place?" Holly asked.

He shook his head in shame. "I was so sure I was some sort of superior being. This group of people - old money, we called them the Royals - had come to the conclusion that the rest of the country was mostly cattle. So, they figured, why not just own them outright? They worked up a plan, and then recruited up-and-coming people who were upset with how the government was going. I fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. I was better than all of them, so much better that I should just be in charge of them for their own good."

"What made you change your mind?" she asked.

"I got sent to Central for negotiations, just after the Los Angeles attacks. And I recognized a couple POWs that had been enslaved. One of them had been part of my security escort for a while - great guy. Had a wife, couple adorable little kids. And there he was, wearing a collar, getting treated like complete shit by some rich asshole. And...that was when I realized that, if the slavery laws went through, the folks who knew any slave I owned would consider _me_ that rich asshole who was treating their friend like shit. And they'd be right."

"So you got back to Southwest..."

"I got back to Southwest, and outed a few of the more obnoxious Council members to some of the more fervently anti-slavery folks in the military, and they 'just happened' to get hit by random attacks. Dropped the SLAVE Act, got a law passed for compensation for families of POWs who had been enslaved. And did what I could to make sure that Southwest won the war. Not that that isn't biting me in the ass right now."

"Oh?"

"The research they're doing - some of the other Council folks bailed after seeing what slavery really meant. Some of them never even realized that was the goal; they'd just been useful idiots. Tom Maybourne came up with some great ideas. One of them was the brainchild of these two scientists, Conway and Vargas. They had worked out a way to put nanotech biomechanical implants into soldiers to make them superhuman."

"Like Isabella?"

"Who?" Erik said, confused.

"Friend of mine, I think she was mixed up in that. Had some experimental bio-implants that Archer was trying to track her down for."

"Probably, yes. Was she an orphan, by any chance?"

Holly nodded. "Yep. Santa Fe. Archer said you pulled her out of the rubble, actually. If you like irony."

Erik winced. "Oh. Shit. That Isabella. She ended up with Maybourne? I..." He hung his head. "Jesus, I screwed up her life completely, didn't I? What happened to her?"

"She got caught at the end of the war, and Ferb's brother bought her - by accident, he claimed, and then they all escaped to Canada. Archer wanted to vivisect her, she said. And the mayor wanted to rape her, beat her, and probably do even worse things to her, not necessarily in that order."

"Sounds like Dutch, alright. He always was a little creepy, even when he was on my side. So, yeah, Maybourne led this Project Dewdrop..."

"I heard the mayor and general talking about that, that's what they're working on here, right?"

"Right. They want to make supersoldiers, but even more..." He shook his head. "The Council wants even better implants for themselves. After all, if you think you're inherently better than the rest of humanity, something that makes you more physically capable is the season's absolute must-have."

Holly chuckled.

The door to outside the slave pen opened with a _*click*_ , and Lieutenant Knox stepped through. "Holly, come with me, please," she said.

"Duty calls," Holly said, and Erik laughed as he waved her off.

The lieutenant led her to the door to the research area. "In," she said, so Holly went through. Holly had been worried that the Lieutenant would make her life difficult after their refusal to cooperate, but nothing had been said about it.

They passed through a few more secure doors, coming to one marked 'Black Hole'. The lieutenant badged into this final door and led Holly inside.

The short Indian man who had been with Ferb sat in a chair facing the door. She saw that he had been strapped down to it, so that he couldn't move. Another chair sat directly across from him, the straps dangling loosely.

"Sit," the lieutenant said. Holly sat in the chair. Straps went around her arms, chest, waist, thighs, and ankles, making sure that she was not getting out of the chair under her own power. "Open," she said, holding a ball gag to Holly's mouth. Holly opened, not seeing many alternatives, and the gag was buckled into place.

"Now, Slave Tjinder," the lieutenant began.

" _Doctor_ Tjinder," he corrected her.

She tapped a button on the remote, and he convulsed briefly. "Slave Tjinder, that is what the shocker in your collar feels like. Not comfortable, is it?"

"That hurt quite a bit," he said.

"Good. Now, here's the deal. Until you agree to start working on the implants we want, Slave Holly here is going to get to feel that pain quite a bit. This is entirely under your control. You can make it stop any time you want."

"No, I cannot. You can. Your attempt to pass the blame to me for your actions will not work," he said calmly.

Holly tried to tell the doctor that she'd be fine, that he shouldn't give in, but the gag kept her from making any noises other than an indistinct mrfl.

"Really," the lieutenant said. "So, you feel no guilt about this?" She pressed a button on the remote, and agony swept over Holly. The world was pain, agonizing pain, radiating out from her neck. It felt like her neck had been doused in acid and then lit on fire.

And then, suddenly, it stopped as quickly as it started. She was breathing heavily through her nose, trying to get enough air with her mouth sealed by the gag.

"I do not see why I should feel guilt when you are the one pushing the button," the doctor said calmly. "You have kidnapped me - committing an act of war in the process, I might add. You are attempting to force me to undertake illegal research on an unwilling subject who, I suspect, is also not legally a slave. You have broken at least three laws to this point. My acquiescence to one point would not change the fact that you are the one entirely in the wrong here. But even so, I refuse to grant you even that small satisfaction."

"You're just going to watch her suffer?" the lieutenant said, pushing the button again. Holly thought she heard the woman continue to speak, but she was unable to process the words through the pain. She was sure her neck was a blistered mess now from the flames.

And, again, it stopped.

"She has said that she does not want me to do this to prevent you from pushing the button," the doctor was saying as calmly as he could. "It would be unkind of me to waste her sacrifice by yielding anyway."

Lieutenant Knox pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "Why did I let them talk me into this job? Why?"

"That I do not know," the doctor said.

Lieutenant Knox glared at him. "Are you familiar with the concept of a rhetorical question?"

"Yes, but they have never been my strong suit."

"I noticed." Lieutenant Knox walked over to Holly and removed the gag. "Here, let's try it this way. Let's let you hear her scream." She pressed the button, and Holly felt another wave of pain. She wasn't sure if she was screaming, she was too busy coping with searing agony.

"Now, you'd like him to make that stop, wouldn't you?" Knox asked.

"I can take it," Holly said, her voice only wavering a bit.

Knox stared at her. "Seriously?"

Breathing deeply, Holly nodded. "Yes."

"Thank you," the doctor said.

"Pfeh," Knox said, shoving the remote in her pocket and stomping out of the room.

Holly smiled. "No, thank _you_. I want to make these assholes' lives as difficult as I can."

"I agree." The doctor looked around. "I do not believe we have been introduced?"

"Oh, right, sorry. I'm Holly Washington. I used to work for the Mayor of Danville until I recorded him confessing to setting the Danville bomb. And you?"

"I am Doctor Baljeet Tjinder, from Toronto. I was working on a special project for the Canadian forces with Mr. Fletcher when we were abducted."

"Yeah, I know Ferb from ages ago. I used to date his brother back in high school."

The doctor looked uncomfortable. "Oh? I was working with his brother, and...a woman friend of his."

"Oh, you worked with Isabella? It's okay, she's a friend of mine too."

He looked relieved. "That is nice to know, Ms. Washington."

"Oh, call me Holly, please."

He smiled at her. "Thank you, Holly. Please, call me Baljeet."

The door opened, and Lieutenant Knox came back in. "Time to go back, folks. You first, Tjinder." She knelt down to start unstrapping Baljeet from the chair.

" _Doctor_ Tjinder," he said icily.

Knox glared at him. "I could just leave you here, you know."

* * *

"How far out are we?" Isabella asked, entering the room where Phineas was monitoring the drone.

"About ten minutes," he said, not taking his eyes from the screen. The image shown swept over the Montana countryside, scattered houses amid grassy fields. To the right and ahead, tall mountains stood proudly on the horizon.

"Want me to get you anything?" she asked.

"No, I'm good. Might want to let Vanessa know we're almost there."

"Will do." She kissed him on top of his head and pulled out her phone, sending a quick text to Vanessa's number.

 **Almost there, in case you want to be here when it arrives.**

A moment later, a reply arrived.

 **On my way. You might want to check the news, I think you'll be interested.**

Isabella frowned, puzzled. _News? What's up?_ She switched her phone over to a web browser, bringing up the CBC site. A large headline appeared under a picture of Mayor Abercrombie, and a picture of the shattered rubble that remained after the Danville bomb had gone off.

 **LEAKED RECORDINGS CLAIM DANVILLE BOMB SET BY SECRET 'COUNCIL'**

Underneath, a smaller headline read, **Rescuing Heroes May Have Been Bombers**.

Isabella quickly brought up the full article, reading it avidly. She didn't even notice Vanessa arriving, as she was too busy muttering under her breath.

"There's the fort," Phineas said. "Chem sensors aren't finding anything in particular yet."

"Ping the ground scanner? Underground bunker, maybe?" Vanessa said, sitting forward on the edge of her seat.

"I'd like to avoid broadcasting until I know they're here if I can help it," Phineas said.

"Fuckers!" Isabella said suddenly.

"Huh?" Phineas asked, looking back at her.

"Let me guess," Vanessa said. "You just found out why your family was killed?"

"Why all of our families were killed," Isabella said. "Why we had that entire fucking war in the first place."

"Mm?" Phineas said.

"Sons of bitches wanting slaves," Isabella said. "The fucking Liberators were patsies. That asshole Archer and the fucking Mayor blew up Danville."

"Wait, what?" Phineas looked up at her, stunned. "Mayor Abercrombie was one of the rescuers after the Shatter Day bombing, it was part of his campaign..." He trailed off, his eyes wide. "He was in on it all along, wasn't he?"

"Yep," Vanessa said. "Everything - the bombings, the war, all of it."

"They broke up the country and killed millions of people to make it possible for them to 'prove' they were so superior they should own people like cattle." Isabella grimaced. "This is being censored in America, I assume?"

"Of course," Vanessa said. "The media are all still under war-time controls. It's leaking around the Internet, though, so I suspect it'll be big enough they need to respond soon."

"Maybe we can use that for cover when we go get Ferb and Doc, then," Phineas said. "Speaking of which..." He turned back to the screen, which was still showing the view above Fort Harrison. "Still nothing. There's some buildings that aren't on the directory up in the hills over most of the base, let me take the drone down closer to the largest."

"That's a pretty big building there," Vanessa said.

"What's that green light in the corner?" Isabella asked.

"Potential Ferb detection. Good enough. Let me scan the building more closely," Phineas said. "Okay. Five people in there...there's Ferb, there's Doc. That's where they are."

"Well, then," Vanessa said. "How do we get them back?"

* * *

"The drone left our airspace, sir," Higgs said.

"Heading back toward Canada?" General Archer said, looking up at her.

"Yes, sir. Should I call for an intercept? I know we can't get a missile lock on it, but a fighter should be able to get it with its cannon."

"No, we want them to think it succeeded."

"Damn near. Sir. If we hadn't happened to catch that radar burst, we'd have never seen it."

"See what you can find on how they were controlling it. Now that they know what's in Building 22, they'll be sending people down. And once they're here, we can catch them."

He saw Higgs start to say something, then catch herself. She'd only asked what was in Building 22 once, and had kept her mouth shut after being told she wasn't cleared to know. "Do we know who they'll send?"

"I'm betting that we'll get a Dewdrop soldier to do research on after all," he said with a smile.

"You think they'll send Echo Three, sir?"

"I'm counting on it."

* * *

"Okay. Here's the building plan that we know," Colin said, rolling the paper out on the table. "Ferb and Doc were seen here and here - looks like a residential pod inside the building, Two other people in this area, looks like another residential pod."

"What's this area?" Phineas said, poking at a set of larger rooms.

"Another residential pod, but a fancier one," Colin said. "VIP housing, perhaps. Rumour is that this building is a secret slave-holding site for muckety-mucks."

"How about this area with the fifth person in it?" Isabella said.

"Control room is our best guess," Colin said. "And we have no idea at all what these rooms back here are. Labs, lounge areas, kinky sex dungeons, who knows?"

Phineas laughed briefly, then caught himself. "You're serious, aren't you?"

"If it is where top-secret slaves are held for government officials, then...well, we know some of them are into some seriously weird stuff," Colin said.

"Like Mayor Abercrombie," Isabella added darkly.

"Oh," Phineas said quietly.

"This one black space is a Faraday cage or similar," Colin said. "Might be for testing electronics, might be for doing things you want to be sure can't be recorded. There may have been more people in there, we have no way of knowing."

"We can assume there are cameras all around the edges, probably visible and infrared," Isabella said.

"Right, I've marked the ones that are known from satellite images on the plan." Colin pointed as he talked. "There's only three doors in. This large open space is a garage, big enough to hold a semi. Large garage door, plus a smaller personnel door. And a direct door into the VIP pod."

"So both the personnel doors are on one side. What are the walls made out of?" Phineas asked. "Can we cut through?"

Colin shook his head. "Reinforced concrete. No way through unless we bring explosives, and those are too likely to draw attention."

"So, we're going in through one of the doors, then," Isabella said decisively. "Which one?"

"It looks like the VIP area is unoccupied, and probably has the least restrictions," Phineas said. "Might be easier to go from there into the slave pods than vice versa."

"We can get directly into the control room from there, too, and that will let us take out the person in there faster," Isabella said.

"That makes sense," Colin said. "But how do we get there without being noticed? Unless you've got a stealth implant planned I wasn't aware of..."

"Nope," Phineas said. "Stealth generators are too big for personal use. Hm."

"Is there data connectivity between the building and the rest of the base?" Isabella asked.

"Probably not. I assume it's sectioned off. Hard to be sure, though, the power and any hypothetical data cables are all buried," Phineas said. "Why?"

"Because if I can get into their network, I can fake out the cameras," Isabella said.

"Hm. So you need a way into their network remotely, then?" Phineas asked.

Isabella nodded. "Why, do you have an idea?"

Phineas grinned. "I think I do."

Colonel Scott came into the room. "Warrant Officer Park?"

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Word just came down from above. You're scrubbed on this. If Ms. Garcia-Shapiro wants to go, she can for now, but we cannot send Canadian personnel."

Colin paused, looking at the colonel. "Yes, sir."

* * *

Phineas lay in bed, Isabella's bare body draped across his own, and felt her breathing slow. Tenderly, he kissed the top of her head. "Love you," he whispered.

She lifted her head to look at him, a lazy grin on her face. "Love you too." She nestled her head back on his chest and sighed contentedly.

He gently stroked her back. _I wish we could just stay here like this forever. Instead of having to..._ He tensed, thinking of tomorrow, and she lifted her head again, concerned.

"It'll be okay," she said. "I promise."

He smiled faintly. "I know. I just worry."

She leaned up, inching her face closer to his. "I know. But it'll be fine. I can handle this."

"Just be careful, okay?"

She kissed him, gently. "Always."

* * *

"Be careful," Vanessa said over the radio.

"Always," Isabella said from the pilot's seat. She ran final checks, then took a deep breath. She pulled up on the altitude control, lifting the hovercar straight up. "Flight systems nominal," she said. "Activating stealth mode." She paused a moment, then said, "Stealth mode active. How's it look from outside?"

"I'd say it looks good," Phineas said over the radio, "but I can't see it at all. Vanessa, how do the sensors look?"

"All the sensors see is blue sky," Vanessa said. "I think you're good to go."

"Roger that," Isabella said.

"I wish we could give you a camera," Phineas said. "So we could see how you're doing."

"The building's too far away, they'd probably pick up the radio," Isabella repeated. She'd had this discussion with Phineas several times. "Time to head out. Beginning radio silence. See you in a while with a few more passengers,"

"Godspeed," Vanessa said.

Isabella nudged the speed control forward, and the hovercar leapt, flying across the prairie. She took it higher, keeping it below the traffic lanes but high enough up that its passage shouldn't be audible on the ground.

She crossed the border half an hour in, and kept an eye out in case somebody sent a fighter to intercept her. No visitors seemed forthcoming, so she continued on for another 45 minutes to Fort Harrison.

Building 22 was somewhat isolated from the rest of the base, up in the hills to the east. There was a low ridge just south of it which she should be able to hide behind. She piloted around carefully, checking for cameras and other sensors. Once she'd seen all that she could, she carefully targeted one of the cameras with the dart-gun that Phineas had added.

The hovercar remained steadily still in the air as she centered her crosshairs on one of the rear cameras and gently squeezed the trigger. She confirmed the hit, then took the hovercar down behind the ridge.

She checked the passive sensors, confirming that nobody seemed to have noticed her. _Wish I'd had one of these back with Dewdrop. Would've made a lot of missions easier._

She picked up her DIMMER, checked it, and took the palmtop computer Phineas had set up for her. Her gear set, she double-checked around the hovercar, then turned off the cloaking field and opened the door. It opened silently, revealing the ridge, bare and brown.

Isabella slipped through the door, her DIMMER ready, her hearing cranked up. The dusky sky was quiet, but in the distance she could hear the sound of the base, and the highway beyond it. The door closed behind her.

She slid her communications periscope out of the palmtop computer and peeked it up, just above the level of the ridge. She could see Building 22, squat and wide, with just a blank wall facing her way. To the right, a driveway led up to it, ending in a garage door at the end and a small parking lot in front of the building. She focused in on the dart in the camera, and brought up the communications system.

 **SEARCHING...**

 **SEARCHING...**

 **SEARCHING...**

 **SIGNAL ACQUIRED.**

 _We're in business_ , she thought. She began by seeing what information she could get from the camera itself; not much, other than a view of the ridge. She checked its network status, and found the address it was sending data to. A quick probe indicated it was a standard-issue Southwest video control module, which she could take over in her sleep. A moment later, she had control of it, and could pull the data from all the camera feeds.

 _And that's why Echo team had the best kill ratio of any part of Dewdrop._

She ensured she had solid access to the video control, and then checked what else was part of the network. A lock controller seemed to control most of the internal locks, which were set to badge and palmprint access. She added her blank access card to the system for access with any palmprint. Finally, she set the cameras to loop so that she wouldn't be seen inside the control room.

Twilight was deepening around her as she slipped over the ridge and toward the building, The lights around it shone brightly, and she hoped nobody was watching it from a distance. It seemed unlikely, though - there wasn't much else around here.

She slipped around the building, peeking around the corner with her periscope. No cars in the lot, no movement heading up, nobody around.

* * *

Archer watched Lieutenant Knox operate the controls in the Building 22 control room. "She's coming in over the ridge?" he asked.

"Yes, sir. The pressure sensors show she spent half an hour or so there before coming over. The cameras don't see anything, but the main computer's been hacked, so we won't get anything useful from it until we do the hard reset."

Archer smiled. "Good. Bets on which door she tries?"

"I'm thinking it's the garage," Knox said, watching the screens. "Easier access to the slave quarters."

Archer shook his head. "Hm. Yeah, I could see it. Well, we'll know soon enough. The traps are set?"

"Of course."


	11. Building 22

The front of the building had two doors, but was otherwise as remarkable as the two other sides Isabella had seen. Each large door had a palm pad next to it; the closer one had a small sign that said "Building 22 Residential Block. Authorized Personnel Only."

 _Here goes nothing_ , Isabella thought. She pulled a card out of her vest pocket and swiped it across the pad; the pad beeped and the door unlocked with a _*click*_.

She pulled the door open and looked into the dark room, her DIMMER pointed and ready. Nothing moved inside. She stepped in, checking the walls, and spotted nothing waiting. Lights clicked on automatically, and she saw the room. In the center of the room, an elegant but bare dining table sat with six chairs around it. Beyond that, three large, plush couches surrounded a small platform. On the wall, a large television was mounted. At the end near her, three other doors led out. One was unmarked but had a palm pad next to it, one was marked 'Restroom', and the third was marked 'Quarters'.

Isabella stepped over to the unmarked door and swiped her card against the reader pad. As she did, she heard the sound of a DIMMER firing from nearby. Something hit her wrist, and she felt the world fade out as she slid to the floor. _So it really does work on me_ was the last thought she had before the darkness hit.

* * *

Holly sat and poked listlessly at the computer terminal. It was restricted so that it had literally no access outside the building, instead giving her options of a couple dozen movies to watch. None of them held any interest for her at all.

A commotion in the hall drew her attention. She opened the door of her room, and saw Lieutenant Knox backing down the hallway, carrying something. Behind her, she saw General Archer carrying the other end of whatever it was. Across the hall, Erik peeked out from his own door.

"Any word when I get some help here, sir?" Knox asked.

"Oh, Lieutenant Rockwell will be coming along with Dutch. They're due in tomorrow afternoon," Archer said. As they passed by, Holly's blood went cold as she realized they were carrying a person, a young woman. She looked at her face and gasped as she recognized Isabella, wearing the same sort of knit outfit she was, with a slave collar locked around her neck again.

Archer looked up at her as Knox tapped the opening panel for an unoccupied bedroom door. "You'll probably appreciate this, actually, Holly. You know Dutch. Lieutenant Knox will be getting the Black Hole ready for his...interests. But he'll be more interested in bringing our latest resident in for a visit."

"How did you..." Holly began.

"Who else would they send to rescue the missing scientists? The Canadians are too chickenshit to send one of their own. It'd be an act of war, eh?" Archer laughed. "Suckered 'em right in."

They carried Isabella into the room, and the door closed behind them. Holly looked up at Erik, whose face was pale.

"What?" she asked.

"I recognized her."

* * *

Isabella woke up suddenly. She blinked as she sat up. She was in an unfamiliar room, on an unfamiliar bed. The room was mostly dark, dimly lit by a light coming through the crack under the door.

She sat up, and the room spun briefly before settling back into place. A light clicked on automatically, showing her the room. It was sparse - a small desk with a computer and a chair, a dresser, and the bed she was sitting on. The walls were austere white, and the room smelled faintly of dust and antiseptic. One door led out.

 _How did I get here? Last I remember, I was going into Building 22. I tried to open the door to the control room, and..._

 _There was a DIMMER implanted in the pad. It was a trap all along._

She looked down, and realized her fatigues had been replaced with a soft knit outfit. Disturbingly, she had no underwear underneath it. A familiar but unwanted weight on her shoulders indicated that a collar had been placed around her neck again.

The computer screen flickered on, and an unfamiliar young woman with lieutenant bars on her collar stared out of the screen. "Echo Three," she said.

"My name is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro."

"Your name, _Slave_ , is whatever we choose it to be," the woman said. "For now, I will call you Echo Three because it pleases me to do so."

Isabella stared at the woman silently.

"I am Lieutenant Knox. I am in charge of this facility. Your collar is not the standard model. We are aware of your enhancements, and the collar is designed to neutralize them. Any attempt to activate your implants will cause the collar to signal us, while causing you intense pain that the implants will not block. Do you understand me?"

"Yes," Isabella said grudgingly.

"Very good. You'll recognize some of your companions in Pen A." She looked down and did something below what the camera could see. "Your door is now unlocked. Go meet them." Lieutenant Knox looked up at her with a vicious grin. "Ask Erik what he did before the war." The screen flickered off.

Isabella stood and walked to the door, noticing the odd muted sounds of her footfalls. She pressed the pad next to the door, and it quietly slid aside. The hallway was white as well, with two doors across the hall, a door at the near end, and a door opposite it at the corner. She quietly walked into the hall, noting the black quarter-dome in the corner that indicated a camera. The door at the end had a label on the door: **Bathroom**. She walked the other way, toward the corner, and found an open door at the far end.

"Hey, you're up!" Holly said from the couch as she walked in. An older man she vaguely recognized sat next to her.

"Holly? Why are you here?" Isabella asked. "Pissed off the mayor one time too many?"

Holly looked half-proud, half-embarrassed. "Sort of. Recorded him and General Archer talking about how they'd been involved in the Danville bombing at the start of the war. And how..." She looked at the man next to her, embarrassed.

"Oh, you leaked that? I heard about it just before I left Canada."

"I gave it to the Anti-Slavery Front. They weren't supposed to leak it, although I suppose they realized I'd been traced and figured there was nothing to lose."

"The recording is viral in Canada, but the media was suppressing it in America," Isabella said. "It was starting to leak through social networks, though."

"You heard the whole thing, then?" Holly asked.

"Yep. Archer and Abercrombie in Danville. And the guy who dragged me out of the rubble was apparently the fucker who set the bomb in the first place, Senator Erik..." She suddenly realized where she recognized the man from. "You. Bailey."

The man looked ashamed. "I am so sorry. I'd say it was my gravest sin, but...I've done so many horrible things that it's just another one." He stood, clasping his hands. "Whatever you wish to do to me, I can only say I deserve it."

"You killed my family," Isabella said, her eyes narrowing as her fists clenched. "You orphaned me."

"I did," he said. "And then I sponsored General Maybourne. Everything that has happened to you is, ultimately, my fault. I cannot apologize enough for what I've done. I can only say...I did the first out of foolishness, and the second in an attempt to fix what I'd done before. I knew I was sacrificing a few to try to keep everyone free. I'm sorry you were one of them."

"Why? Why did you do...everything?" She shook her head angrily.

"I fought to take over the country for slavery because I thought I deserved to be on top. And then I fought against it because I realized anyone who believed that, didn't deserve it at all."

A door in the wall slid open, and Lieutenant Knox came in. "Echo Three, stand down," she said, gesturing with a collar-control remote.

"Let her kill me, Kimmy," Erik said.

"No. I need your help, actually, Erik. You are going to help set up the Black Hole for me," the lieutenant said.

"Oh? What for this time?" He paused for a moment, then grimaced. "Oh, shit. Dutch, right? Ew."

"Mayor Abercrombie isn't aware yet that Echo Three is here, but his tastes are known, so we should probably get things ready for him."

Holly winced. "Shit."

Isabella shrugged and sat next to Holly as Erik followed Lieutenant Knox out the door. "I've been through worse. Whatever it is."

* * *

The armored truck pulled into the garage, next to the stealthed hovercar that Echo Three had piloted over. General Archer stood quietly, waiting, as Lieutenant Rockwell popped out of the driver's seat and saluted.

"Oh, quit that, Artie," Dutch said as he climbed out of the passenger seat. Behind them, the garage door automatically closed. "How's it going, Alex?"

"Not bad, Dutch," the general said. "Lieutenant Rockwell, once you unload, go assist Lieutenant Knox. You're in room 3, Mayor Abercrombie is in room 4."

"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said, heading back to get their luggage.

"How's the outside going? I assume things have gone south badly if they're sending you here to hide," Archer said.

"It's a fucking mess, Alex," Dutch said as they passed through the storage room and into the lounge area. "We've put a media blackout on the recording, of course, but it's leaked on the undernet. We haven't been able to get the content firewalls up on the occupied territories yet, especially the Southwest. So it went viral throughout the west coast, and we're getting massive protests. Riots, even, in Albuquerque and Portland. And now it's leaking through into the rest of the country, and we're starting to get inklings of protest everywhere. Five thousand people tried to march in Chicago, until the Army came out to meet them."

"Jesus," Archer whispered. "No wonder they want you hidden."

"Yep. You and me are persona non grata for a while. Keep your nose down so that nobody can ask you any questions." Dutch flopped down on a couch with a sigh. "I wish I knew why she did it."

"You can ask her, if you want," Archer said, taking a seat across from his friend. "Not that it'll get you anywhere. Stubborn little bitch."

"She always was. That was why she was such a great assistant. The new one's a spineless idiot who deserves a collar."

"I do have a present for you, though," Archer said with a smile.

"Oh?" Dutch said with a raised eyebrow. "Something that'll distract me from taking my frustrations out on Holly?"

"I believe so." He leaned in close. "We caught Echo Three. She's in Pit A now. Knox is getting the Black Hole ready for you right now."

Dutch sat back with a huge smile on his face. "Really? The little Latina bitch?"

"Collared and ready. Caught her last night. Just be careful with her. The collar should neutralize her implants, but she's still a trained fighter."

"I'm sure I can handle her," Dutch said, rubbing his hands together.

* * *

"She should have gotten back to us by now," Phineas said as he paced the room. He hadn't slept at all, and it showed.

"Maybe..." Colin said, trailing off.

Phineas paused, sighing. "They caught her, didn't they?"

"Or..." Colin paused again.

"I know. I have to believe they caught her. And then...well, she can escape from them."

"She can try, certainly," Colin said.

Phineas sighed. "Still nothing on comms. Satellite pass in 5 minutes, maybe we'll get something out of it."

"Sure, let's go see," Phineas said. Colin followed him into the control room.

They sat and watched silently as the communication system remained silent. After a few minutes, the screen flashed as the satellite image came in.

"Hovercar's gone," Phineas said.

"So either the radio's out and she's on her way back," Colin said.

"...Or she's been captured and they moved it into the building," Phineas said.

"Zoom in there?" Colin said, gesturing toward the image.

Phineas spun some dials, focusing in on the ridge that Isabella had been planning to land behind. "Looks like a trail leading from there to the garage area," Phineas said. "Like..."

"Like they captured the hovercar too," Colin said.

"Fuck," Phineas said.

* * *

"I'm sorry, Ms. Doofenshmirtz. This comes directly from the Prime Minister herself," the Minister of National Defense said. "We cannot risk angering the Americans right now. They're already making noises about us 'kidnapping' their citizens, so if any Canadian soldiers were caught in American territory..."

Vanessa glared at the man. It wasn't his fault, she knew, he was just telling her what he'd been told, but that didn't make it any better.

" _They_ kidnapped one of _my_ scientists," she said bitterly.

"I know. And I've let the PM know that I think this war is coming sooner rather than later. Especially with this latest leak about the Council of Sanford."

Vanessa raised an eyebrow. "You knew about the Council?"

"Of course we did. But there wasn't a damn thing we could do about it. Now that it's been leaked in a way that's hard to dispute, though, they're going to start panicking. The American people are demanding an end to wartime restrictions as it is, and now this...the best way to shut it down is a war. We _cannot_ give them an excuse. It's bad enough that the expat went back using Canadian resources."

"So we try to push back the war indefinitely?"

"We try to push it back until we're ready." The minister sat back, running his fingers through his greying black beard. "I feel a bit like Chamberlain some days."

"I wasn't about to comment on the resemblance," Vanessa said with a snide smile.

The minister acknowledged that with a chuckle. "The thing is - Chamberlain wasn't entirely wrong. He could have handled it better, and I think the PM is doing so. But Britain wasn't ready for a war then, and pushing too hard may have meant they lost it all. So we're trying not to provoke the Americans, while we prepare for the war everybody knows is coming. The Mexican alliance is still fragile but improving. The Europeans have offered support but they don't think it'll be necessary. We're caught between a rock and a hard place." He looked up at her with a sad smile. "I'm sorry, Ms. Doofenshmirtz. I know that your significant other and your employee are prisoners of the Americans right now. But I have the entire population of Canada to look out for, and right now, the best thing for all of us is to leave them there."

"Thank you for your candor, Minister," she said, standing up.

"We're going to need your help for this, Ms. Doofenshmirtz," he said as he stood as well. "All of Captain Desjardins's platoon has volunteered for Obelisk enhancement."

"Doofenshmirtz Biosciences will be ready to gear them up, Minister."

* * *

"You. Come with me," a young man with lieutenant's bars said, gesturing to Isabella.

With a sigh, she stood up. _I wonder if they were telling the truth about the collar being able to detect my implants being activated,_ she wondered. With her implants live, she could certainly take this lieutenant down without a problem. Without them...she eyed him as she approached. It'd be a lot closer, certainly. And if he, or anyone watching through the ubiquitous cameras, could activate a shocker in her collar that would bypass the implants, then she wouldn't stand a chance.

Better to bide her time for now until a better opportunity presented itself.

They left the lounge, passed through the dining area, and entered through the door to what Holly had said were the labs. "Turn around," the young man said. She did, and felt the cold steel of handcuffs on her wrists as they were ratcheted closed, biting into her skin. He turned her around roughly and attached a leash to her collar.

The lab area lounge was large and unoccupied, but she didn't get much chance to look at it before he dragged her through another door into a hallway. He badged-and-palmprinted through a door at the end, then led her down another short hall to a door labelled "Black Hole". Instead of badging through, he pressed the annunciator button just above the palmpad.

The door slid open, revealing a darkened room beyond. "Send her in," Mayor Abercrombie's voice said. The lieutenant unclipped the leash, grabbed her arm, and gave her a shove through the door. It closed behind her, plunging the room into darkness.

"I've been waiting for this a long time," the mayor said from somewhere ahead of her. "In here...you're mine."


	12. Hell Breaks Loose

A light flicked on, and Isabella saw the mayor standing in a pool of light. He wore a black leather half-mask that covered the top half of his head, a leather harness across his chest, a pair of leather briefs, and leather boots. He held a small remote in one hand, while the other hand's thumb was hooked into the waistband of his briefs.

With the light on, she could start to make out the rest of the room's contents. Shadowed furniture extended back into the blackness, made of leather and wood and steel. Behind the mayor, she could see a large metal frame with leather straps hanging from chains attached to the corners.

 _This is the Faraday cage room. No way for radio signals to get in or out. From what Holly said, there's no computer access in here, either, except for the door's access pad._

 _That means if my collar triggers because of the implants, it won't alert anyone else._

"Welcome to the Black Hole," the mayor said. "When the Council built these special retreats, we put in one room like this in each. No radio can get in. No outside access. No way to record what happens. What happens in here, stays in here." He grinned viciously. "Maybe I'll just leave you in here when I'm done with you. What's left of you." He touched the remote and turned up the lights a bit more, and she could see all the way to the walls now. About a dozen pieces of furniture designed to restrain people were scattered around the room. The walls had low cabinets along them on one side. A tray to one side of the metal frame held small metal tools, but she couldn't be sure what they were at this distance. Hanging from the side of the tray was what looked like a coiled rope, or possibly a whip.

Isabella tested the handcuffs as subtly as she could. There was no give at all in them, and they had been tightened down so she couldn't slip loose.

"You think you're better than me, because you've got your fancy implants. Well, now you learn that they'll hurt you, too. You're just cattle like the rest of them." He held up the remote with a flourish. "Your implants can be turned against you, and it's just this easy." He pressed a button on the remote.

Isabella felt the clicking sensation that Phineas had put in to indicate that somebody was trying to use the Agonizer on her, and laughed. The mayor jabbed the button again, and she felt the clicking again.

"We upgraded the implants, Mayor," Isabella said with a smile. She started to stalk toward the mayor, toeing off her slippers as she did so. The bare concrete floor felt cold on her feet.

She brought her implants online, and the clicking sensation came back. _Need to disable that before I leave the room_ , she thought.

"Fine," the mayor spat. "Try this, then." He pressed another button, and a flash of a burning sensation washed over her. And then, her implants kicked in, and the pain went away entirely.

"Nope," she said, dropping down into a crouch, at least as much as she could with her hands cuffed behind her. "So now the question is, are you going to unlock these cuffs now, or do I have to beat the shit out of you first?"

"With your hands tied behind your back?" the mayor asked nervously, looking around.

"Do you think I can't do it?" she asked, slowly approaching him. "Even without the implants, I'm a better fighter than you are."

The mayor backed up toward the metal frame, then leapt back and grabbed the coil. Shaking it out, he revealed it to be a long bullwhip. "Still think you can take me?" he asked, cracking the whip out toward her.

She sidestepped, the implants giving her plenty of time. "Yep," she said, more confidently than she felt. He cracked the whip again, and she watched it move. She balanced on her toes, coiling herself to strike.

"Fine. No more playtime," he said, and the whip snapped straight at her. She spun forward, kicking the whip downward while she leapt over it. She continued the spin, flashing toward the mayor faster than he could react, and kicked his wrist, making him drop the whip. She leapt aside and continued the spin, and even as he slowly turned toward her, her leg lashed out and kicked his knee. She felt the bone shatter and cartilage tear through her bare foot. An _O_ of surprise came on his face as he crumpled to the ground.

"You're right," she said with a sneer. "No more playtime."

The mayor lay on his back, holding his knee, tears in his eyes. He was fighting to keep in the scream of agony that she could see welling up in him. She leapt over to the tray, which held surgical scalpels, along with various clamps, needles, and pins. Off to the side, she saw a pair of handcuff keys, which she turned around and grabbed. It took just a moment to release one side of the cuffs, and she rolled her shoulders to loosen the tightness in them as she moved her hands around in front of her. The second cuff opened even more quickly.

The mayor was just trying to pull himself to standing, leaning on the side of the frame. "Why?" he asked.

"You seriously need to ask?"

"I'll never walk right again," he said.

"And how does that compare to what you had planned for me?"

"But you're just..."

She grabbed the front of his harness, pulling him toward her as he unsteadily balanced on his good leg, still holding the frame for support. "I'm not _just_ anything." She let go of the harness, then ratcheted a cuff closed on the wrist he was supporting himself with. With a smile, she closed the other side of the cuffs onto the frame itself.

"Hey!"

"That'll keep you from going anywhere. Why don't you have a seat, Mayor? You're going to be here a while."

She made sure there wasn't anything useful within his reach, then investigated the rest of the room. She turned off her implants, and the clicking in her shoulder stopped, more notable by its absence than it had been in the heat of the moment. _If I leave the room without disabling the collar, it'll broadcast whenever I use my implants. Let's see what I have to work with here._

The tools on the tray wouldn't be useful on the collar, unfortunately. She walked over to the cabinets on the walls, opening one; it held medical supplies.

"It'll never work," the mayor said, sitting on the floor and leaning against the side of the frame. "As soon as you leave this room, your collar will broadcast whenever you use your implants. They'll see you on the cameras. Even if the shocker doesn't work on you, it'll work on all your friends."

She ignored him.

The next cabinet held a few basic tools - not much, but all she'd need, most likely. She didn't need to worry about the collar broadcasting anything in here, so she could just break it open. It'd try to shock her, but she'd already seen that that wasn't effective. She rooted through the tools, finding a few screwdrivers. There was a small mirror, which she used to size up the connections on her collar. It looked more or less like a standard model, although there was an odd thicker spot on one side.

"You'll see," the mayor said. "You might as well just surrender now and make it easier for yourself."

"Shut up unless you want me to break your other knee," Isabella said, looking in the mirror. She wedged one screwdriver into the latch, and then used another to lever it open. The shocker kicked in, and she felt the clicking in her shoulder that indicated her implants were active and blocking the pain. She knew the collar was sending out alerts on every frequency it could as well, indicating an escapee. "You know, when so much of keeping slaves from escaping is based on radio transmitters, bringing them into a Faraday cage is really not a clever move. What idiot thought this one up?"

"It wasn't my idea," the mayor said defensively. "I just liked using these rooms."

"And now," she said as she levered the collar open, "it's going to let me escape." She pulled it away from her neck, and the clicking stopped as her implants no longer needed to block the pain. She peered into the collar, and disconnected the battery. The lights on it went off, and she smiled. "Now, let's see what other toys you've left me here."

A small box on the counter held leather restraints, gags, and chains. She rolled her eyes, and looked underneath. A small case next to it contained an electronic shock kit, and she grimaced. Inside the cabinet, however, she found her palmtop computer, along with the clothes she had been wearing when they brought her in.

"Seriously?" she asked. "What, you were worried this was going to call home?"

"I don't know," the mayor said. "Probably."

She picked up the palmtop and a few screwdrivers, and carried it over to the doorway.

"What are you doing?" the mayor asked nervously.

"Taking this place over. Again." She inspected the door's keypad, nodding to herself.

"Won't work," the mayor said.

She turned and glared at him. "Seriously? I'm Echo Three. Electronics and computer hacking. This little thing doesn't stand a chance." She gently pried the cover off the keypad, then pulled the access cable out of her palmtop, hooking it into the exposed wires. A moment later, she'd taken over the small computer inside the keypad, and was working her way back into the building's central control computers. She re-added herself as an administrator, and quickly patched the recovery files so that her changes couldn't be easily overridden. A quick check of the keypad system showed that all three doors to the control room were set up with DIMMER charges that would trigger if anyone other than Knox or Archer tried to open the door; she disabled that, and pushed the change into the recovery files.

She brought up the camera views throughout the complex. Lieutenant Knox was sitting in the control room, looking bored as she scanned the monitors. The lieutenant who had led her to the Black Hole was sitting in the lab's lounge area, poking idly at his phone. Ferb and Doctor Tjinder were in an area marked 'Pen B Lounge', which looked a lot like the lounge she'd sat in and talked to Holly. Holly and Erik were sitting in the Pen A Lounge.

"There we go. Everything under control again, Mayor. See? No problem at all."

* * *

Lieutenant Kimberly Knox sat back in the control room of Building 22, her eyes casually flicking across the monitors. Nothing unexpected. The scientists were safely in Pen B, the research subjects were in Pen A, and she'd seen Lieutenant Rockwell escort Echo Three into the Black Hole, where Mayor Abercrombie was waiting. After that, Rockwell had gone to the lounge to wait until the mayor was done.

She pursed her lips in disapproval. She hadn't had to deal with Abercrombie herself before, but her parents had told her about him. The Council had two major factions internally, who called themselves the Patriots and the Royals. The Patriots had primarily gotten involved with the coup in order to fix the ways they had felt the country had gone astray. It was clear that the country needed an existential threat to restore its citizens' faith. She and her parents were part of the Patriots faction, which was just under half of the total Council membership. Most of the people who were involved on the military side were Patriots.

The Royals were just under half as well, with the remainder being undecided and switching back and forth depending on their whim. The Royals had funded the coup because they felt that they had a natural right to be in charge, and most of them were in the political side of things. They had pushed through the slavery laws, because they needed to prove their control down to actual ownership of people. Some of them took that to extremes, wanting to not only own others but do so cruelly. Abercrombie was one of those, and she'd heard the horror stories of what came out of the Black Hole at Sanford Central when he took someone in there. She almost felt sorry for Echo Three, to be honest.

A flicker on one of the screens, showing the corridor outside the Black Hole, caught her attention. She watched it for a moment, but there wasn't anything there. She frowned, then shrugged. This building had been pulled out of mothballs after the Southwest surrender six months prior, and they still hadn't had a chance to fully upgrade it to modern security and monitoring standards.

Another flicker, this one in the hallway through the Council residential bloc. _Okay. It could be coincidence that I'm getting flickers in the corridors between the Black Hole and here. But..._

 _How the hell would Echo Three get into the computer system from there? There's nothing but the keypad..._

 _Fuck. She's that good. And we left her little computer in there to keep it from broadcasting._ Knox pulled up the keypad system. It looked okay, but she couldn't be sure. Just to be on the safe side, she re-dumped the system from its safe restore state. It'd take just a moment to reboot, and hopefully would keep Echo Three from getting anywhere. The cameras for the residential bloc came back up - the hallway was empty, as was the lounge. She scanned through the four residential suites, and there wasn't anybody in any of them.

 _Must be seeing things,_ she thought. The communications system beeped, and the base security center monitor came on the screen. "Lieutenant Knox? Everything okay there? We caught a momentary disconnect," the young sergeant on the far side said, her dark skin lit by the glow of her monitors.

"It's fine. I caught a glitch and did a reset just to be sure," Knox said. "Thanks for checking up on us. I'll notify the general."

"Okay. I'll log it on this end, then." The sergeant reached forward and the screen flickered off. Knox glanced over the monitors again. Lieutenant Rockwell had stood up, and was heading toward Pen A. She sighed, almost wishing she could turn off the monitors in there as well. As someone who worked with Abercrombie, Rockwell was almost certainly in the Royals faction, and probably was going to take out his frustrations on the slave girl, Holly. Hopefully he'd remember that he was supposed to leave her mostly unharmed for testing purposes.

* * *

Isabella checked her palmtop computer, hooked into the bathroom lighting system, with a sigh of relief. She'd been just about to go through into the control room when the system had reset, and she'd dashed into the bathroom just off the lounge as a hiding place until she could regain control. Fortunately, the backdoors she'd placed into the system restore state had worked perfectly.

She knew that Knox would be watching for another flicker now, so she brought her implants back up to full speed. Her stomach growled at her, and she grimaced. She hadn't eaten since last night, and using her implants had burned through a lot of her energy stores. She couldn't risk messing with the cameras again, so she'd have to just rush in and hope. She drew her DIMMER, checked its load, and brought up the palmtop again.

The control room door was right next to the bathroom door - it was only the extreme soundproofing throughout the building that could have kept Knox from hearing her go in. She'd have just a couple seconds to exit the bathroom, sidestep to the control room door, open it, and stun Knox with the DIMMER before Knox would see her and sound the alarm. Isabella checked the palmtop again, looking at what Knox was doing. She'd just reassured base security that there wasn't a problem, and was now poking at the system files. Isabella had hidden herself well, but not well enough to keep out a determined attacker. Time to go now.

She hit a button on the palmtop, and a five-second timer appeared on the screen. She disconnected it and replaced it in its holster, readying her DIMMER. The bathroom door and control room doors simultaneously opened. She leapt out, bringing her DIMMER to bear. Knox was good, Isabella had to give her that. She wasn't going for her own weapon, knowing that Isabella was faster, but was instead turning toward the panic button.

Not good enough. Isabella's shot hit her in the shoulder, and she slumped onto the floor, her hand sliding off the control panel after coming within inches of the large red button.

Isabella checked the monitors. The other lieutenant wasn't where he had been - she saw him just entering the slave pit where Holly and Erik were watching the television.

She tapped the pad to bring audio up from that camera. "You. Bedroom. Now," the lieutenant said, gesturing toward Holly.

* * *

Holly was talking to Erik and keeping a casual eye on the door back from the lab area where Isabella had been taken. The door slid open, and she saw Lieutenant Rockwell come through. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for Isabella to follow him.

"The mayor isn't done with her yet. I'm just bored. You. Bedroom. Now," he gestured toward her with a control remote.

"Seriously, Jake?" Erik said, leaning back on the couch. "You've been hanging around Dutch too long."

"Shut up, traitor," the lieutenant said.

"I'm the traitor?" Erik asked incredulously. " _I'm_ the traitor?"

The lieutenant hit a button on the remote, and Erik cried out as he fell onto his side, then rolled off the couch, clutching his collar.

"Maybe we don't even need to go to the bedroom," the lieutenant said with a leer. "Why don't you just strip down now. This loser can watch."

Holly stared at him for a moment, and he held up the remote. Sighing, she pulled her top off, dropping it on the couch. _I've been expecting this ever since they put a collar on me. I'm surprised it's taken this long, to be honest._ Behind the lieutenant, Erik was whimpering as he climbed back onto the couch.

"Very nice," the lieutenant said. "Now the pants."

The door to the lounge opened, revealing Isabella. She raised her weird pistol and fired, and the lieutenant went down like a sack of potatoes.

"Sorry it took so long," Isabella said. "We don't have much time before the rest of the base figures out we're loose, so let's get those collars off you, and then go grab the boys from next door." She gave Erik a long look. "We'll settle up later."

* * *

General Archer paged through the log items for the day, ignoring most of them. Nothing important in them in general.

The number 22 in one entry caught his eye, and he looked back at it. Security had called into Building 22 because of a network blip. Glaring, he printed it out and stalked over to the security office.

"Sergeant Alvarez," he said, marching to the communications desk, "why was I not notified of the incident in Building 22?"

The young black woman looked up at him, startled. "Lieutenant Knox told me it was nothing. So I logged it and went on with my duties."

"Is there not a standing order to notify me of any security incident involving Building 22?"

"I...I'm sorry, sir. Lieutenant Knox said she'd deal with that."

He frowned at her. "Bring up Lieutenant Knox, please, so I can find out why she didn't, then."

The sergeant tapped some keys and brought up a view of the control room in Building 22. It was empty.

"Lieutenant Knox isn't there, sir," the sergeant said.

"I can see that." He paused for a moment. "I'll go see what's going on, then."

He quickly rounded up a couple soldiers to escort him over to the building. As they drove up into the hills to the building, he saw the garage doors open. The hovercar they'd moved inside the garage flickered and vanished as it started to move out.

Leaving the guards at the door, he ran into the building, quickly finding the control room. Lieutenant Knox was unconscious on the floor. He shook her briefly, and she groaned but didn't awaken. He brought up the security office on the screen, where the sergeant was looking back at him. "Sir?" she asked.

"Sound the alarm. The prisoners are escaping in a cloaked hovercar. They're on their way to the border."

* * *

Ferb sat in the copilot's seat of the hovercar, watching the sensors as Isabella piloted them back toward safety in Canada at 400 km/h. Two blips appeared behind them, approaching fast, the heat as they sliced through the air shining brightly in the infrared.

"Two interceptors at 6 o'clock," he said.

"Oh, it's only fifteen-hundred," Doctor Tjinder said from behind him, "we have plenty of time to cross the border."

Holly, sitting next to the doctor, said, "That's not what he means. He means they're coming from right behind us."

"Coming up fast. Even if they can't find us, they have a good idea where we are," Ferb said.

"Should have headed off the direct route," Isabella said. "Sorry."

"The longer we're in American territory, the more ways they can stop us," Ferb said.

The radio clicked on. "Unidentified hovercar," a voice said over it, "you are ordered to land immediately."

"This thing's unarmed, Ferb," Isabella whispered.

"How far to the border?" Ferb said.

"Fifteen minutes," Isabella said.

"We have you on targeting radar," the voice said. "Turn off your cloaking device and land _now_. You have thirty seconds to comply."

"Shit," Isabella said. "Sorry. I hoped we could make it." She reached for the stealth switch.


	13. Run For The Border

Phineas was sitting on the edge of his seat. Surveillance systems had seen the American interceptors rocketing toward the border, and he hoped beyond hope that Isabella had managed to get away after all.

And then, they'd picked up the broadcasts from the planes, telling an unidentified hovercar to land or be fired upon. He knew the hovercar couldn't survive any sort of combat - that wasn't its purpose. How were they detecting it, though? He'd made it invisible to practically every type of electromagnetic wave known to man.

The radio transmission came in again. "Turn off your cloaking device and land _now_. You have thirty seconds to comply."

He closed his eyes and winced. _So close._

He sat up suddenly. "Wait, why are those fighters telling them to turn off the cloaking device? If they can target it, why can't see they it?"

* * *

"Wait," Ferb said, catching Isabella's hand. "The threat indicator isn't showing a targeting lock. They don't have us on radar. They're bluffing."

"What?" Isabella asked.

"You have ten seconds to comply," the voice said.

"Turn left ten degrees and drop down so we're below them," Ferb said.

Nodding in comprehension, Isabella turned the hovercar to the left ten degrees as she decreased the altitude. The interceptors continued straight along their original course.

"This is your final warning," the radio blared. "Drop your cloak **NOW!** "

Isabella silently drew the hovercar to a stop and let the interceptors overshoot them. One of the interceptors launched a missile, which flew off, untargeted.

"Thank you," Isabella said. "I didn't realize."

"Let's get moving again before they get better sensors up here," Ferb said.

With a nod, Isabella brought them back up to speed.

* * *

"What's that big bright symbol on the sensor screen?" Doctor Tjinder asked, leaning forward from the middle seat.

"It's an AWACS," Isabella said, keeping her eyes busy scanning the skies around them. They were approaching the Canadian border, now just twenty kilometers away - a mere five minutes at their current speed.

"Is that bad?" the doctor asked.

"Maybe," Ferb said. "It's got much better radar than anything else in the skies. It's possible their radar is strong enough to penetrate our cloaking device."

"Oh. That is indeed bad."

"Yes. Yes, it is," Ferb said.

"Taking us lower," Isabella said, dropping down to just above treetop altitude. "It'll make it harder for them to spot us against the noise of the ground cover."

They skimmed along the canopy before reaching a broad bare patch of prairie just before the border. In the center sat the unmistakeable shape of a surface-to-air missile battery, just warming up its radar. The threat warning on the control panel lit up as the battery's radar overpowered their cloaking device.

"Hold on!" Isabella said, banking the hovercar to one side and diving even lower. The threat indicator went off as they went too low for the battery to follow, skimming a couple feet above the ground. She poked up as high as she dared to avoid obstacles, dodging around the occasional bison that was confused by the wind of their passage.

"Interceptors coming in from above," Ferb said. "They can follow us from our wake in the grass."

"Six kilometers to the border," Isabella said. "Taking it up a bit." She lifted up high enough to not cause wind effects, but the incoming AWACS and the ground radar both caused the threat indicator to light up, so she slowed down and took the hovercar back below their radar.

"We can't just sit here, the AWACS will be able to spot us when they get close enough," Ferb said.

"I know," Isabella replied testily. "Sorry. Flying wasn't my job, I was special forces."

Ferb smiled at her. "I realize. My apologies."

"So we get shot down if we move, and caught if we don't?" Holly asked.

"Pretty much. Unless something lures the planes away."

* * *

Phineas flew the drone along as fast as it would go. He'd realized that the hovercar might need some help getting across the border, so he'd brought up the drone and sent it along to act as a decoy.

Behind him, Colin kept an eye on the sensor feeds from the planes near the border. "Looks like the interceptors may have found something, they're diving."

"Damn," Phineas said. "I'm not quite there yet...how far out are they?"

"About six klicks off the border," Colin said.

"Okay. I've got an idea."

* * *

A light pulsed on Ferb's side of the console, and a speaker came to life with Phineas's voice. "Hey, folks, sending out an encrypted message for you. I'm going to try to draw them off. Hold as still as you can until I can pull them away, then book it across the border on emergency power. Should take you no more than a minute. I'll tell you when to go."

Isabella looked at Ferb and nodded, keeping them creeping along forward. They were practically in the grass, flying slowly enough that their wake just looked like wind.

"Threat indicator increasing. The AWACS should be able to see us in a couple minutes, even down here," Ferb said, scanning the board.

"I don't see where we have a better idea, though. If we move fast, the interceptors will see where we are, and if we go up higher, the AWACS will pick us up even faster."

Ferb nodded, watching the board. The infrared signatures of the interceptors swept back and forth above them, with more inbound. Whatever Phineas was going to do, he'd need to do it fast.

* * *

Colin watched the airspace near the border, shaking his head. They had a rough idea where the hovercar was, but the problem was, so did the Americans. If it moved, it could be shot down before it reached Canadian airspace. If it didn't move, it would be detected soon and forced to land or be shot down.

On the American side, interceptors were congregating in the area, and an AWACS with a fighter escort was approaching as quickly as it could. On the Canadian side of the border, air superiority fighters were patrolling the border, keeping an eye on their American counterparts.

Phineas claimed to have a plan, but he had yet to share it with Colin. Right now, Colin had to watch the inevitable death or capture of his friends - Isabella, and Ferb, and even Doc Tjinder in his own stuffy way. They were almost to the border, but the Americans wouldn't let them get across alive.

"Okay, Colin, tell..." Phineas checked the screen. "Ace 4, 6, 8 and 9 to form up on the drone as it crosses back over the border at these coordinates."

"And they'll do what you say because...?" Colin asked, punching in the instructions.

"Because right now, they'll listen to anyone coming in on an authenticated channel. It's easier than wondering what the hell to do, and if the war is going to start here and now."

Colin nodded acknowledgement and picked up the mic. Orders relayed through regional control and to the fighters, and Colin saw them starting to move to escort something that wasn't there.

"Blip enhancer active," Phineas said. "Drone crossing back into Canadian airspace in ten..."

The drone came back toward the border, twenty klicks to one side of the estimated position of the hovercar, its blip enhancer making it appear to be the cloaked hovercar to the Americans. Two interceptors pulled off and raced toward it, while the remainder went higher to scan further afield.

Phineas picked up the mic. "Okay, Isabella. Give it about twenty seconds to draw the interceptors away, and then punch it."

* * *

Isabella watched the interceptors pulling away, even as the AWACS got closer and closer. There was a fine line to balance here; if they jumped too soon, the interceptors would see them, but if they waited too long, the AWACS would get through their cloak.

A bright spark flew from one of the interceptors, a missile streaking toward the drone. It would strike just before the drone crossed the border.

"Now," Phineas said, and Isabella pushed the throttle to full. The hovercar leapt forward, and she brought it a bit higher to keep from hitting any hills or trees.

"Radar lock in five," Ferb said. "Forty seconds to the border."

"Interceptors?" Isabella asked, wishing her enhanced reflexes were more useful when flying. Unfortunately, the momentum of a hovercar doesn't care how fast you can twitch your fingers.

"Still not noticing us. Radar burn through...now. They can probably see us. Thirty seconds to the border. Interceptor inbound!"

Isabella nodded and concentrated on flying as fast as she could. Dodging and jinking would just slow them down right now; their best hope was speed.

"Twenty seconds. Interceptor missile radar hitting us. They have lock. Fifteen seconds," Ferb narrated. "Missile away!"

Isabella scanned the terrain in front of her; nothing interesting except a few stray cows.

"Border in ten. Impact in five," Ferb said. "Second missile fired."

"Brace yourselves!" Isabella said, diving back toward the prairie. She dodged a cow, then vectored directly away from the missile.

Behind them, the missile detonated, shredding the briefly-startled cow. "Border in five, missile in ten," Ferb said.

They shot across the border, the hovercar climbing as they went. "Ejecting now!" she shouted, firing the ejection seats. All six seats shot into the air as the hovercar's stealth system, compromised by the holes in the roof, turned itself off. The seats were buffeted by the winds, sucking Isabella's breath away, and they began to fall as the seats' AI tried to get them away from the imminent impact.

The missile struck the hovercar, shattering it in a fiery explosion. The shockwave buffeted the seats as they slowed, and their parachutes deployed as their momentum carried them further into Canada. A squadron of F-15 fighters flew along between them and the border, almost daring the Americans to make trouble.

* * *

"We've got them," an unfamiliar voice came over the radio. Canadian Forces helicopters had been dispatched to pick up anyone who made it across the border, and had made it just twenty minutes after the hovercar had been blown out of the sky. "Five on board, no injuries."

"Five?" Phineas asked. Colin shrugged, and spoke into his microphone.

"Five," Colin confirmed. "Isabella, Ferb, Doc Tjinder, and two other prisoners, a Holly Washington and an Erik Bailey."

Phineas sat back and blinked. "Holly? Seriously?"

Colin looked at him, confused. "You know her?"

"She's my ex-girlfriend."

* * *

Holly looked around at the room she was led into, filled with cheering people. "You made it!" Phineas said, charging toward Isabella, who met him halfway in a hug. He then went on to hug Ferb and even Baljeet, who responded with a smile. He then turned to her and hugged her as well. "Holly, what the hell were you doing there?"

Holly laughed. "You may have heard about a recording of General Archer and Mayor Abercrombie drinking?"

"Oh! You made the recording, of course. Thank you! You may have helped us keep the Americans off-balance. Who's this?" He turned toward Erik, trailing.

"Erik Bailey, formerly a Southwestern Senator, and before that, part of the Council of Sanford. The man who can tell us everything we need to know about the American leadership," Holly said.

Erik stretched out his hand, and Phineas pulled him into a hug as well. "Good to have you on board. Welcome to Canada."

"Thanks," Erik said. "Hopefully, we can get my information out so that it can undercut what the government is saying. From what I've heard, they're off-balance and dealing with internal strife. Knowledge of what the Council has done may tip it over the edge into full-fledged resistance against the government."

Ferb leaned in. "Assuming they don't get desperate enough to do something drastic."

"Hey, the American President just cut in to all their programming," somebody Holly didn't recognize said, looking at a screen. "Let me put up the audio."

The voice of President Sherman came over the room's speakers. "... have ignored these repeated provocations from Ottawa in the interests of peace. No more. Canadian forces swept into Montana, attacking an American military base and abducting several American citizens for whatever prurient purposes they may have. This is a bridge too far, and we will not stand for it."

He cleared his throat. "I have sent a request to Congress, asking them to declare that a state of war now exists between the United States of America, and Canada. I have also sent notices to all European embassies, as well as the Mexican embassy, stating that their mutual-defense agreement does not apply because this war was directly caused by Canadian attacks on American soil."

Holly looked around the now-silent room. All the faces around her were full of determination and fear, hope and horror.

The President continued, "Under my authority under the War Powers Act as amended, I have authorized the launch of tumbler missiles toward Canadian military bases and defense contractors. We are launching as I speak. It is my sincere hope that the Canadians recognize the overwhelming might we can apply, and surrender immediately."

Phineas looked at Ferb. "I think that qualifies as drastic."

* * *

 **And we'll wrap this up here. A third and final story is planned, tentatively titled "Land of the Free", but I have not yet begun writing it. There's also a little side story about Ginger and Buford that I'm working on.**

 **Many, many thanks to everyone who's read this far. Special thanks to Sabrina06 for beta, and to foxflowers, MyronGreenleaf, EDD17SP, and Rebb R-01 for reviews and comments.**


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